There are useful ones. Something like Midnight Commander can be way better than lots of manual copy and move commands. The kernel config one is way nicer than the stream style kernel configuration tool. Some of these newer ones are starting to feel more like “text mode bling” than useful.

My objection to TUI is I don’t think it’s clear enough for what’s happening here. I think you could easily argue that applies to most readline style stream CLI programs.

Would you call a fully 3D UI in VR, not a planar in the VR world but true 3D, a GUI? It is graphical by definition. But if you talked to someone about a GUI that’s not what they’d think you’re talking about without additional context.

That’s my objection. I think TUI implies way less than what these programs are doing. Yeah it can describe them but I don’t think it should be the word for them.