[whateveruser]

Every time this point comes up, ultimate conclusion isn't the CLI is bad or can't be improved, but the VT220 and similar emulation that's holding things back. Any person who has developed a terminal emulator can attest to that. There have been and are attempts at a much better CLI, but until we drop the legacy baggage, we can't have nicer things, at least in a sane way. But if we do that, we don't really have enough incentive to use the newer tools. Its a catch 22 after all.

[xte]

Mh, did you ever tried modern shell like zsh or fish, with a reasonable config? Or even better, despite a bit steep learning curve, eshell (Emacs) if you already know Emacs and elisp a bit or xonsh if you are already familiar with Python.

As an Emacs (EXWM) user I agree that pure CLI is limited and pure text-based interfaces without terminal emulators limits are far superior but... Well, today outside Emacs we only have CLIs, the rest is so limited and limiting that can be used only for desktop end-user stuff. Even Microsoft Windows mandate CLI for serious system use/management...

[vokep]

Sounds like someone needs to just Do it.