I agree. I often find the stand-alone tools do the job better and making the switch from an IDE to another tool helps me focus on the task of committing the code with correct comments, bug IDs etc.
Scala is definitely worthwhile learning, particularly if you're coming from a Java background. If you're using it as a "better" Java it can make your code much more succinct through type inference, pattern matching, traits etc and short code is usually easier to understand and debug. It's also a great way to start learning about functional programming since Scala supports both imperative and function programming styles.
The things to be careful of are the advanced features such as implicit conversions, they seem like a great feature and in a small code base they work great. But if your code base grows at all it can be next to impossible to be sure what your code is going to do.
Not trying to repeat a cliche but as with most things, "With great power comes great responsibility," and Scala gives you a lot of power but it also puts the onus on you to know how and when to use it.
I love Scala and have been using it for a couple of years but I've been through nearly all the stages described in the article. Eventually I got so frustrated I gave up and learned Clojure !!