Most of the time you don’t write the code, you change it.

I had tons of situations where I wanted to test deleting a code block which just happened to use an imported library, which the compiler is now complaining about because it’s no longer being used.

That’s a problem with your workplace, not the language nor OP.
You could have a build setting for personal development where unused variables are not checked, and then a build setting for your CI system that will look for them. It gives you freedom to develop the way you want without being annoyed when you remove something just to test something, but will not merge your PR unless the stricter rules are met.

I think NPM has the same feature, it’s called overrides https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v9/configuring-npm/package-json?v=true#overrides

Indeed, Elder is truly something else! If you like the blend I really recommend their last album, Innate Passage. It’s a superb mix of their older more stonery stuff and their last few more prog rock oriented albums.