IMHO, NetHack is the king of clunky, quasi-graphical-but-really-text-based games. In many ways, it is probably the greatest computer game of all time. Is Dwarf Fortress in the same league?
There are many experiences I've had in Dwarf Fortress that were particularly vivid. A polar bear stalking my woodcutter, but evading my warrior across the arctic tundra. A master engraver carving the story of a dwarven child who went mad. Purple gas saturating the grave room and leaking into the halls when my dwarves were being massacred by kobolds. Good friends celebrating in the great room, drinking while admiring the mist (the fortress was built into the back of a waterfall, and mist makes dwarves happy). The clumsy blacksmith and shy carpenter who lived in their corner of the mine, happily married and rarely taking food with the other dwarves. The cats. The dragon.
"Short, sturdy creatures fond of drink and industry."
Edit: there is also an "adventurer" mode in DF, which is a straight-up roguelike, where you can go and, for example, explore old fortresses you built. It is fun, but last time I played, it was still very rough and most of the focus had gone into the fortress-building side of things. I know that Toady spent a lot of time building a more dynamic roguelike experience a year or so ago.
He's adding in climbing, trees and walkable/climbable branches, reaction moments - so you could be running and shooting - conversation systems that let you begin insurrections (not scripted but proceduraly handled)...Non-lethal combat!
His patch notes read like wish lists for entire genres of games.
Whatever people may say about the interface, they are missing out.
Calling what DCSS changes from NetHack 'problems' is pretty disingenuous; the games are not trying to do the same thing.
>The history of Crawl is somewhat convoluted: Crawl was created in 1995 by Linley Henzell. Linley based Crawl loosely on Angband and NetHack, but avoided several annoying aspects of these games, and added a lot of original ideas of his own.
Brogue is probably the most accessible amongst the text-based roguelikes - it's interface is excellent, it manages to be very visually appealing without straying from the ascii aesthetic, and the design of it is streamlined and elegant.