I'd point out that we've surrounded command lines with a lot of accoutrement over the years
I would counter your claims with the simple fact that the earliest command-line interfaces had none of these. A process change only has to offer an incremental improvement over what came before to drive adoption. Those of us who used the earliest shells and the job-control languages that preferred them know that the bar for usefulness can be set quite low and the tool will still be used and improved upon.
"The utility of the command line would plunge if we didn't have any of those"
If I'd meant "been eliminated", I would have said that. Nevertheless, I cite the "your mom" argument. "People" are terrified of the nice command line, and we think that they're going to switch to a vastly, vastly more user hostile one, no matter how friendly and chipper it may seem on first glance? If "people" wanted command lines that much they'd already be using them.
I would counter your claims with the simple fact that the earliest command-line interfaces had none of these. A process change only has to offer an incremental improvement over what came before to drive adoption. Those of us who used the earliest shells and the job-control languages that preferred them know that the bar for usefulness can be set quite low and the tool will still be used and improved upon.