I think it killed the performance on a lot of the systems in the Labs for years because everyone had their own copy of it, but it wasn't being shared, and so they wasted huge amounts of memory back when memory was expensive.
I got tired of people complaining that it was too hard to use UNIX because the editor was too complicated.
I had almost rewritten all of the display code for windows, and that was when I gave up.
I think the hard thing about all these tools is that it takes a fair amount of effort to become proficient.
Bitmap display is media compatible with dot matrix or laser printers.
I think the Macintosh proves that everyone can have a bitmapped display.