On the other hand, as long as the latency is similar, the SSH experience is pretty much the same regardless of bandwidth --- the exception being commands that produce plenty of output.

Which might not even be such a bad thing - I would not like going back to programming in an environment where I have to triple-check every variable to see if I can shave off a couple of kilobytes, either.

That might be part of why I've found newer programmers seem to write more complex and inefficient code than older ones, who tend to come up with simple and efficient solutions naturally. I think everyone should experience using and programming in a constrained environment, if only to train this skill of what's efficient and what isn't.