Well, obviously blender will keep having all the main functionalities of every DCC.
Furthermore node tools should integrate as seamlessly as possible just like addons to a point where users shouldn’t care if it’s C, python, nodes…
Finally it’s less about more common tools but it’s more about specific tools / functionalities that nodes could be really useful.
I can give few examples out of my mind :
1/ tension maps : they were never implemented in Cycles/Eevee, and now it’s pretty easy to emulate that functionality until it’s finally implemented.
2/ hair tools : Blender ships some nodegroups to do grooming. And we can easily expand on that, creating specific workflows : Mesh to Hair with Geometry Nodes , nodes allows rapid evolution / prototyping of tools that are likely to be artist friendly and production efficient since it’s made by people who will use the tools.
3/ particles systems : I don’t know how long do you do blender, but the current particle system is pretty old (IIRC ~2010), a bit cryptic in some places unfinished in others, and it was left like this until now.
Even if it was rewritten now it would probably end up in a similar situation, as it’s a complex tool that needs to cover many use cases and it need a lot of time and feedback to be polished perfectly.
Obviously at some point we’ll have particles nodegroups shipped in that will replace the old system. But it doesn’t really matter if this new system is perfect/complete or not as it’s now much more easier to make one tailored for a particular task.
In this new way of working, BF / Software engineers make sure the core tools show as less limitation as possible, they focus also on optimizations and so on.
And us artists that works on production environment can take care of the final interface and functionalities. And if a problem occurs most of the time it’s just a matter of adding a few nodes which is much easier than updating a monolithic tool.
These use cases might not be interesting to you, and maybe you are more into modeling, but in these area too there is a broad range of specific tools that are possible. Maybe something where you select a edge and convert it into a zipper ? Adding procedural damages to a mesh, building pipes, ropes, roof tiles …