> There's a reason why the status quo exists
Yes, it's called the status quo.
> text is universal
Which one, ASCII, code page 9000, or UTF-8? Are you saying just restrict to ASCII? Then we need custom solutions every time someone wants to talk a different language.
> lock in
I am locked into using retarded insecure terminal emulators because all my tools depend on it to render what you people call "text" which is supposdedely "simple" or "universal". Even vim breaks from unicode already. The primitive language of the OS should not be some poorly defined idea of "text", but algebraic data types.
> reading important
Which is better done by graphics that text. Just the fact that with a structural editor - an if statement spans the amount it appears to span, instead of having to trust someone to format it correctly - is already enough reason to ditch text.