This is fueled more by nostalgia than usefulness. That game example is horrible. It draws attention to icons more than the content itself. Makes the whole experience fatiguing.
Was it a little fun? Sure? Maybe? It was cute for a moment or two. But "near production ready"?
Kids downloading emulators today and experiencing 40 year old consoles like the NES and 50 year old consoles like the Atari 2600 for the first time don't want an all text UI. They want a picture of that ancient hardware. It makes their experience feel more real. In contrast, Retroarch is that it's an emulator frontend designed that has no frills in its UI, and it's designed with a mindset that everything doesn't take up much space, everything provides value, and color schemes aren't all over the place, and there aren't really any icons. And because it's the ideal HN emulator, it's difficult to use and ugly.