I wonder if perhaps this is also a generational thing. Programmers from before syntax highlighting became popular would be less likely to prefer it, no? I’m not even sure if programmers from current/recent generations ever prefer not to have syntax highlighting, but I’m genuinely curious if there are such people out there.
I've known people who've started without synhi but wouldn't leave home without and people who started with rich synhi everywhere and now avoid it except for the first couple months of learning a new language, so it's certainly not just generational.
I would not at all be surprised if people who started off one way or the other (for generational reasons or indeed any 'whatever environment they were first introduced to' style reasons) are less likely to end up switching, but that probably says more about perceived switching costs as what would be most comfortable for somebody.
e.g. I know people who took a month to be comfortable without synhi but then loved that, and I've spent weeks trying to be more comfortable -with- and given up, and honestly anything that half screws your productivity for over a week is going to be a hard sell even if the end result -would- be better (waves in "also, still can't manage to drive emacs" ;)
I grew up with fully fledged syntax highlighting, but I still prefer to use really minimal themes as I find them to reduce cognitive overhead and eye strain.
It was hard for the first few hours, but then I eventually got used to it, and now I can't use anything else.
I know this is not quite as extreme as working without syntax highlighting :)
I started before syntax highlighting became widely used (in the Emacs 18 era), but was super-excited for syntax highlighting when it became available (Emacs 19 and XEmacs), and probably went overboard with it. These days, I prefer minimal syntax highlighting.
