You can run VLC without a GUI too: vlc -I dummy

There's also a skins, ncurses and http interface.

If they all have the same backend, why is it that nothing beats mplayer-nogui? Is it so that you can watch video in a screen session? </humor>

Now seriously, what is the application? Isn't that a defect in the GUI?

Well, MPlayer and VideoLAN share most of the libraries so it's basically the same back-end. I like them both and I'm glad they share resources (speeding up the development process). Basically the best video players out there.