For me, the concept of a file manager has a bit of cognitive dissonance in terms of Linux. I mean everything is a file and the idea of a file manager that does everything doesn't really mean it does everything. Somewhere there is an arbitrary line and lots of people will draw that line differently.

For me, Bash (or whatever) are great file managers, it's just that the necessary complexity of managing files on Linux manifests itself as necessary complexity in the command line. Sure, Bash (or whatever) isn't what someone means by "file manager" but then again it's not really clear what they mean be "file manager" at all. What is necessary and what isn't becomes a matter of taste. I use |pcmanfm| and it does what I need -- even if it isn't |explorer.exe| -- when I use it. And I use it when I'm trying not to expend to much effort forming a mental map of the tree layout.

But for me, one of the qualities of a great file manager is automating repetitive tasks and Bash (or whatever) do that really well, e.g. it needs to treat regular expressions as first class citizens.