If the APIs of CLI utils is the primary concern, it's worth noting that they say their core userland is provided by "FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD" - so any friction here should in theory just be equivalent to the friction of using a BSD today (or Mac).
the tools have made big strides over the last few decades, so it's nowhere near like it used to be back then
Really cool looking project - looking forward to trying it out.