Every few years I put time into learning eshell and it's seriously impressive.

But what I really want is eshell outside of emacs. In fact I want all the bits of emacs outside of emacs.

The problem with eshell is the problem with emacs. It's a monolith. I know I know that's also its strength, but what I really want is for all the bits of emacs to be exploded out into components that make up an overall environment (yes, yes, Genera/Lisp Machines).

Unlike emacs purists, I am too much in and out of that environment to really ever feel fully comfortable adopting all its tools as my mainstay tools.