The terminal hasn't changed much in 40 years because it very good at what it does, that is, allowing experts to get stuff done. One of the usability lessons of modern computing is that the mouse is a productivity killer. Having transitioned back to vi from TextMate, I have certainly found it to be true.

The author talks about how its a shame to give 2MM pixels to an 80 column terminal, but from what I've seen, developers are perfectly capable opening multiple terminal windows to view things like log files and running quick commands. Try that on a WYSE.

While I don't think I'd ever use this as a replacement for my terminal, I do think the "server" part of the architecture is interesting. What if you built a native OSX app to replace finder. That is something I'd use.