When I first learned to program, back in the fall of 1968, the first 'word' the computer I connected to said to me was 'READY'. That summed it up neatly. The computer was ready to do work, it was just waiting for me to give it instruction.
As I progressed through my knowledge of programming and my focus on providing businesses useful applications for making decisions, whether my interface to the computer was via typewritten prompts on a scroll of paper, green text glowing from a black CRT, on through the current era of graphical user interfaces the fact remains that the computer is still waiting for me to give it instruction. It is READY.
Along that path I moved from developer (we called ourselves 'programmers' then) through network and communications specialist, to Unix and Windows admin, to database administrator, the focus was always on keeping the computer busy at all times, to keep it from waiting for instructions from us.
Somewhere along the line, server operating systems were given a graphical user interface (GUI). Why? Don't know, I wasn't the guy making that decision. It goes against the need to keep it busy. GUIs offer choices. Choices take away from keeping that system busy. A lot of server admins who only learned their craft on Windows Servers seem to only understand how to manage the system via the GUI, and to me that's a shame. They've missed the point.
In 2006, Microsoft introduced PowerShell, a true shell environment for Windows. HOORAY! I've got the command line environment again (without resorting to the brain-dead cmd.exe) with the great shell features I grew to love when working as a Unix admin, like the pipeline.
In 2009, Microsoft released PowerShell v2, with it's built-in Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE). PowerShell v2 made great strides over the original v1, and I applauded their efforts. In v2 they added a cmdlet called Out-GridView. What? Why are you putting a GUI output in my scripting language?
Windows Server 2008 introduced Server Core, a version of the operating system that doesn't include the GUI. Awesome! We can now focus on getting lots of work done again! An added bonus for me is that SQL Server 2012 will support Server Core, so we don't have to slow down the servers with all that graphical rendering (and it does take considerable resources to accomplish this.)
Now, PowerShell has great use on the desktop as well as on the servers, and from that aspect, having GUI output does make sense. The ISE is also useful for writing code, though I've spent a lot of years writing a lot of code without using a GUI to do so. I don't use it because, for the most part, I don't need it. I'd rather have the full command window to see my results than slice my workspace into three parts and work within one of them. But that's me.
What's my point? There are a wealth of tools, and they're designed to make you or your computer more efficient. Use the ones you find most convenient, that works the way you want to work, and use it. What works for you may not work for me, and vice versa. The tools I use to get the work done don't define the value of my work, the work I produce does.
The important thing is to get the most work done, and for me that means working from the command line, also known as PowerShell.exe.