I've actually found most visual programming environments both counter-intuitive (maybe because I'm from the Right Coast, and the visual environments all seem to come from the Left Coast) and counter-productive. Of course, whether visual environments enhance or impair productivity depends quite a lot on what sort of programming one does, and how large and complex the project is. I suspect that visual environments work best on fairly small-scale ("small" is less than about 50,000 significant lines of code) projects which are neither computationally complex , i.e., n-body simulations (see The Art of Computational Science), numerical relativity, global climate modeling, etc, nor require very high performance and auditing standards, such as flight control software.

One thing I tend to find very frustrating about most visual environments is that the accompanying documentation tends to leave a lot to be desired.