It's my impression that Toady likes to program features and the core engine, but doesn't like to work on th UI or graphics.
Without talking about the graphics the UI is awful, bad, inconsistent.
Only a fanboy could write:
And two, the UI isn't that bad, once you get the hang of it it's easy as pie to set up a workshop, designate stone for mining and so on. It takes a few hours of practice, just like with any other game.
A good game might take a few hours to learn. Yes, the
game, not only the UI. A good UI doesn't need hours to be mastered. It should be intuitive, easy to learn and consistent. None of that can't be found in DF.
Take the stockpile menu as an example. allow/block/permit/forbid and additional keys for prepared food, usable/unusable items. That's not intuitive. All this could be done with only arrow keys and enter.
Then there is the trade menu and it's display... rope red ... what? cave crocodile ...what?
A list where you can only see what an item is made of is useless. It's a bad example of an UI.
Then you can build constructions and farm plots and resize them with umkh, but zone and designations can be done with enter and cursor. That's inconsistent.
Then there is the mouse and TTF support. Well, obviously Toady found out how to get mouse coordinates and do TTF, but that's all. There is no real benefit taken from this technolgies. TTF text is more readable and room efficient, but the game only renders the same amount of characters that can be seen with block text. The mouse is nice to designate things, but could do so much more.
So, the UI is bad, just because you have learned it doesn't make it a good UI.
And by limiting game development only to himself Toady limits the game also. A game isn't only the logic engine, nor only the UI, nor only the graphics. In it's core DF is a great game. But the UI is so awful and the graphics are so rudimentary that the success is only limited to a hardcore group of people. If he would allow a UI and/or graphics programmer (both of what he isn't) to join the development the game would overall benefit from it. And he would even make a bigger profit. If you see the success of a game as the product of his components (scale 1-10) than DF is now a 10 (core 10 x UI 1 x GFX 1). If everything would be as good as the core it would a success rate of 1000 (core 10 x UI 10 x GFX 10).
And if he is so afraid of spinoffs then he should set up a contract with his co-developers.
Toady is willing to be slightly inconvenient if it means no one will steal the game. Given how he hardly has money when things are under his control he would starve with clone games.
Nonsense.
Maybe he should think about the Minecraft business model.
Sell the game for 5€ now. Increase the amount as the game develops and finally open a business.
Even now his forum has 35000 members. If each one would buy the game for 5$ this would be 175.000$ or if you consider of 2000$ per months, over 7 years of guaranteed income. Additionally there are sponsors who donate a lot of money and donations could still be possible.