No hardcore anti-mouse views? Or would that basically be "you should continue to allow keyboard-only support and don't spend time doing the mouse now if it's a big time sink, but we don't really mind if other people use it"?
As far as k-v-q-t goes, it kind of sprung up over time, but streamlining has some issues. There can be many things in one square, but only one building per square, and mostly one unit per square. I'm not defending the current interface, but some properties that it has that beat a single button are that 'v' gets you to units fast, 'q' gets you to building jobs fast, and 't' gets you to building items fast. 'k' is a half-implemented general key which shows you everything in the square, but it would require going through that list to get anything done. Of course there are better ways to do it, but there are a lot of issues to consider as well -- if you want to get to a single details page from the main view with the keyboard, you are going to have to either have several key presses to choose from initially (as it is now), or you'll have a series of keys to press (as it would be with a single view like [k]). The mouse would mitigate some of this, but I suspect there are more views on this than what I've currently heard.
Also, if the mouse goes in, it would come in in awkward pieces screen by screen and function by function, due to the older (and most) of the interface being written in a haphazard fashion. These would have to be unified and cleaned up as the mouse is incorporated. I was somewhat resistant to this because the game is still changing, but it seems like some of it has stabilized enough to at least think about how it might work now.
[ September 03, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]