RE: What is the most useful potential feature which Emacs lacks?

[Drew Adams]

> - Starting executables from Dired under Windows (for example with S-
>   RET, OK, there's this package dired-launch).

Just use `!'.
Customize option `dired-guess-shell-alist-user' so
it associates the executable you want with the file
extension you want.  When you hit `!' on a file with
that extension you get the program you want as the
default - just hit `RET'.

You need (standard) library `dired-x.el' for this.

> - Some Dictionary access, in the vain of ispell, when reading, writing
>   and browsing.

This wiki page has lots of such (search for "dict"):

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryInterface

And this wiki page has thesauri (synonyms) libraries:

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ThesauriAndSynonyms