Yeah, I agree that the interface is very annoying,
especially since it's roleplaying intensive, and you'll have a lot of people emoting and talking, filling the screen with grey text. I dunno, I got used to it. DF's original ASCII interface was certainly more difficult to get used to.
But IMHO, it's only slow in the first day or so of making your character, before he gets a job, while his skills are practically at zero. The game really starts once your char has a job and a purpose in life.
Speaking of that, the other character died a rather intriguing death, but I made a new character who was a merchant-toolcrafter (probably the most useless of roles to take). Since my character didn't want people to know she was a useless, rich merchant, she would hang around the taverns telling people that she was a hunter. Someone then gave her an actual job as a hunter, where she got to know and socialize with a bunch of other hunters and her naturally high agility actually made her
look like she was a great hunter, despite not having combat skills.
Some time after that, some guy asked her to join him in a quick hunt, fighting small things. They went, both of them were noobs, but not realizing it, they fought a simple hawk. That guy was too stubborn to run, but my char ran away, scarred that a friend had (permanently) died. Now she's gone from being a social creature, to a manic-depressive small lady, who's obsessed with training to be a fighter. I found that all to be very amusing, but can't post it on the Arm boards, because it's going to be a spoiler