Terry, I think you were extremely over-eager, almost aggressively so, to close this feature request, especially since your reasons given are rather bogus: IPython isn't based on a GUI, it works in a text mode console too, including on Windows.

https://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/overview.html

You say "there is no need to completely rewrite current text-based interactive mode". You are probably right: there probably is *no need* to completely rewrite the current implementation to add at least some, if not all, of the requested features.

For example, I would be shocked if it wasn't absolutely trivial for the current implementation to add auto-indenting following a colon. That feature alone would be a win for usability.

Given that Brett already said that the main obstacle to this feature request was lack of somebody interested and able to do the work (as opposed to a policy that we want the default REPL to be weak and unfriendly), I think you were premature in closing this so quickly. It's not like it has been languishing for years.