IntelliJ's @Nullable annotations are a decent workaround to my biggest complaint about Java. (Java has a static type system that intentionally doesn't catch the most common type error.)
On the NetBeans subject: does NetBeans have much traction outside of Sun/Oracle? It's been a while since I've done any Java development, but back in 2005, it seemed that pretty much only the official Java tutorials used NetBeans.
Netbeans started getting some major traction around the 2005 - 2007 timeframe, but seems to have lost ground since the Oracle takeover. Limited support for Ruby/JRuby and virtually non-existent Scala support caused me to ditch it after many years of use.
On the NetBeans subject: does NetBeans have much traction outside of Sun/Oracle? It's been a while since I've done any Java development, but back in 2005, it seemed that pretty much only the official Java tutorials used NetBeans.