Dwarf Fortress: An actual look at graphical improvements
I never thought the ASCII graphics were a big problem in Dwarf Fortress; once you get used to it using a bunch of symbols as decoration, almost all the weird stuff ends up being things you placed yourself. On the other hand, the complete lack of UX consistency - whether a given submenu will use primary/secondary cursor keys, nested menus, or a pile of hotkeys - is a lot harder to deal with.