Version control also seemed an issue - commercial Smalltalks had tools like Envy - but all the projects I observed in the telecoms world seemed to have a senior developer doing nothing but merging images for the duration of the project.
Indeed. Having source files helps a lot. Smalltalk images suffer from Amish Bread Syndrome. Not being able to build your image from sources and sources alone is disturbing for me and I learned OOP with Smalltalk (later moved to Actor on Windows, but, still, without source code as text files).
The Googles lead me to Amish Friendship Bread, which requires a starter that you have to get from someone else. Thus, without the starter you can't compile your bread from sources. At least, that's the best I can come up with in three minutes. :)
