Good point. But I may make the case, that ascii art is more about pictures, and less about text. So the reduced readability of text might not matter as much. I tried shadowless, and its less visually appealing.

             /\_/\
        ____/ o o \
      /~____  =-= /
     (______)__m_m)

But in the context of ascii-diagrams, then I can see you point of not including stylised drop shadows.

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Btw, no shadow example is added now.