[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...