Why doesn't the default MT template use widgets?

Widgets are the fastest and easiest way to configure your sidebar. Just open up the widget administrator and drag and drop widgets on the sidebar. A great feature for novice bloggers, who don't have the technical knowledge to tweak sidebar templates.

Unfortunately, the default Movable Type templates don't use widgets, which means that to enable widgets on your site you will have to tweak the sidebar template... ouch!

I know, the default sidebar template offers a far more advanced features then the widget engine can offer, with viarables and MTIf constructions. The default sidebar template is a lot cooler without widgets, but also very hard to tweak.

In my opinion, the default sidebar template should include a check on the number of widgets configured. If no widgets have been configured, it should show the fancy sidebar, but as soon as I configure widgets, it should hide the normal sidebar and show the widgets. This is also what many templates in WordPress do and gives you the both of two sides: a fancy sidebar for starters which is easily adaptable by weblog owners.