Now, once you've got ConEmu or something like it that will resize nicely and do other things, you'll still be stuck on the crappy DOS-style prompt though. :)
If I'm using a non-built-in terminal, and a non-built-in Unix compatibility layer, why am I using Windows?
My point, perhaps poorly stated, was this: I prefer a terminal-heavy development environment because that is the most efficient way of interacting with remote servers for the work that I do. I can't consider using Windows without a sense that they've made it a priority to address my use cases and scenarios, and the single lowest hanging fruit possible in that regard is to spend half a dev team (2-3 devs) on modernizing the terminal to the point where when I'm at home and want to check something on a server, I use my Windows desktop instead of switching to my Mac laptop. Even better would be dedicating one or two dev teams to supporting a Unix environment natively, so Cygwin isn't necessary.
For what it's worth, I much prefer the Windows GUI to either Mac or Linux. I was a test developer at Microsoft for Windows 7 and part of 8, and I wrote this comment on my home PC running Win7. I would like to be able to use Windows for the UI and the familiarity I have with it, but those two things, a good terminal and a Unix-like environment, are requirements for my job. And I know from experience that this scenario is absolutely the furthest thing from the minds of the people working on Windows.
Also Powershell is pretty awesome if you take the time out to learn it.
Anyone know why that is?