If a standardised 7-bit clean text serialisation were created for every visual object on a Windows-like system - preferably one which was also cleanly human-editable as text - then we'd have something. But I think you'd have to deliberately break some deeply treasured OOP thinking to get there.
I honestly just wish they would continue down the Exchange 2010 path where all GUI windows have a little PowerShell button, you click the button and there is the commands you would need to run in order to get this scripted. I think its an excellent addition to the way you're already used to doing something with the extensibility UNIX fans crave. We could argue about how much better bash et al. are, but I think this is pretty good for windows cli.
* many of the advantages are dubious
As are many of your complaints.
The question will really be adoption. Which, I imagine, is part of the reason Google is open sourcing it.
My thoughts exactly. I do wonder how they plan on making money off this. Perhaps their portal (eg: gmail) will have some target advertising? Anyway, I'm excited about this but it's years off before we have widespread adoption.
What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli