Great reply's and kudo's to Toady for not selling out to the big game companies, they would just ruin it anyway! Look how complicated Civilization is, still not as complicated as DF I know, but it was able to be developed in a way that graphically portrayed the game and streamlined the GUI. Even if he is not in it for the money, I would think Toady would like to see more people appreciate and enjoy this great game. I know he is a one man army so it really isn't feasible unless he had a team but I guess one can only wish.
** Also, when I said Devs I meant Toady and brother, they are considered developers no?
There is absolutely no game out there that has the level of complexity of DF. It's as much a simulator as a game, and in fact these two often don't make for an easy game experience.
There are a lot of games like Gnomoria now because of Minecraft, yes, but not because Minecraft, or Gnomoria, is similar to DF.
Minecraft demonstrated the success an indie dev could receive nowadays. The digging and building of this success, combined with the fact that most game designers know of Dwarf Fortress, set people in the direction of using the same spirit for something that could be described as a mainstream attempt at DF.
Plus, when you think of digging, you think of dwarves, not necessarily DF. Dwarves existed before. A game about a dwarven colony will look like DF, since it's mostly a game about a dwarven colony.
But you shouldn't worry about other peoples getting ahead of Toady. The sheer complexity of it all would keep any developper at bay, or they will still be several years behind Toady. If they decided to cut off features so as to gain speed, they will ultimately have a game that will be less DF-ey than DF.
However, I too would like an API so we could set up our own graphics client. Maybe at some point it will be done. In the meantime, we have to respect Toady's choices and thank him for the gift he's crafting us.