In fact, I recall reading in the original stonesense thread that one of the goals was as an abstract interface. There is a selector graphic if you don't believe me. This seems to not be addressed in this thread however. I'm assuming that indirectly manipulating the current interface is difficult and so it hadn't been attempted as of yet. I would be dissapointed however if stonesense stayed as just a visualiser.. Maybe my friends/family would get into some dwarf fortress action if stonesense made the transition. I do get frustrated when I can't share my dwarf fortress experience with them. Solving the current interface is like solving a rubiks cube, easy to do once learned, but noone seems to have the patience to learn in the first place.
Hell, with a few adjustments to stonesense and the help of something like autohotkeys to pass keypresses from stonesense to dwarf fortress, it should be achievable right now.
Also, re:Raufgar on point #1:
This is taken out of context, what toady one actually meant was that he was unwilling to bring other people in to help with his code(interface or otherwise), a third party application would not interupt his programming or releases in any way. At worst, it would break compatability with said third party app.
As for third party apps putting him off programming his game, after all the third party support that has come and gone on these threads, I find this to be a baseless comment, The great toad would not stop his programming except maybe if tomorrow a commercial alternative popped up with everything he ever wanted/planned for dwarf fortress.
Sorry for the long winded post, but lastly, anything the stonesense devs release could only ever be a gift to Toady, not an insult. If I were toady and someone built me a graphical front end out of good intentions alone, I know I would feel damn flattered.