I doubt a comprehensive interface overhaul will ever happen. It's just too entrenched at this point.
This right here, though. This is why we should invalidate all arguments like this one:
It's pointless to update the interface when major features are still being added, as most likely it would require several overhauls. I'd rather Toady continue developing the gameplay for now. Refining the interface is for later.
I'm opposed to a mouse-based interface, at least unless the entire interface is utterly scrapped the way that Jiri Petru wanted it to be.
That said, yes you can improve the interface in other ways.
The units screen, for one, could use
- Cursor memory so I don't have to scroll through thousands of units to find one specific cow every time.
- Catagorization so that all dwarves, goblins, cows, and other things are in an expandable folder, with a "collapse folder" button so that I can switch between looking for a particular elf and a particular dwarf fairly easily.
- The dead sorted into their own page, with a button that toggles between looking through living and dead units.
- Some sort of memory of a particular unit I was looking at. Maybe a button that remembers the dwarf I am looking at in the units screen, and then when I go to some other portion of the interface that asks for a specific unit, I can hit the "memory" button, and that unit will be selected or zoomed to on the list for you. That way, I can look for what cow I want butchered on the units menu, and then on the screen where I can actually butcher the cow, I can zoom immediately to that cow I selected.
- For that matter, interface to interface shortcuts. I should be able to switch between the four kinds of "look" without canceling out of a menu, then entering into another menu. Just give a key that swaps from "k" look to "t" look instantly. The same can be said for most other screens, like switching from the screen where I butcher animals to the units screen where I can actually see some data on the animal I am going to butcher so that I can actually make an informed decision.
- Just to expand on that last one, "v" look should have a shortcut to that unit's place in the unit screen. The "z" going into the unit's detailed view was a good step in this direction (and proof that it's not impossible to add some interface changes that help the player. Just make it go into the unit list, or have an option from the detailed view to back out into the unit list.
Flipping from window to window to access amounts of data not presentable to the player in one window is necessary, but at least it can be done as easily and directly as possible with shortcuts, expanding/collapsing folders, and cursor memory.