Since I can remember IntelliJ frequently fails to detect changes in pom.xml. Changed dependency? Manually clean the project and click 2 buttons to let IJ discover it. Added new code without having the right dependency? Download dependencies manually first, try rebuilding the project, but you're likely to have to restart the IDE anyway. That's why I moved to VSCode.
Doesn't IntelliJ has some kind of Gradle wrapper built-in it that integrates with internals of IJ? They developed it to have more powers in Gradle and Kotlin, but didn't care to provide feature parity with Maven. Then they cried when people started leaving IJ for VSC.
I think JetBrains has fully bought into Gradle. I think Maven support has been less and less over time, which shouldn't be a surprise. Gradle supports native Kotlin build scripts (i.e. build.gradle.kts), as well as putting a lot of work into ensuring their tools fit well within the Gradle ecosystem (exhibit A: https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-platform-plugin-template). I think it only natural for the creator/owner/maintainer of Kotlin to go full in on the build system that supports the language!
controversial take: who still uses maven? who would prefer xml files over build scripts? (ok... fine, big timers like RedHat definitely do, or at least, have never taken/don't want to take the time to upgrade lol)
If it works and it is free then maybe, but probably still not. Also it is a Gradle plugin, so it will not touch Maven at all.
And it uses yaml configs... I do not like this at all 😀
Maven is very good for small projects and Gradle take a niche of Ant on steroids. Nobody in his sane mind will migrate from one build system to other until benefits of migration outweighs the burden of redoing all pipelines from scratch.
The problem with JB products that they are barely working now. If you step one iota outside of mainstream functionality then it will break.
Both Maven and Gradle integration are very very brittle. And also not really optimized for big projects with big amount of modules/sources.
And I love JB products. It saddens me to see every year I drops in quality of IntelliJ. And New fancy interface transition is just the mess.
Migration to the subscription based allowed JB to release more products but overral quality dropped.