Elsewhere, the author makes the point that with TRAMP, your local (gui) Emacs can transparently operate your remote machines (bringing with it of course all the customizations and functionality you've built into your local config--and of course your local window management).

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/tramp/Qu...

I've known this was possible for many years; but on a lark, I just wrote a microfunction that opens, in my local Emacs, a remote file I often have to edit as root. I don't live in Emacs, but there's no denying that, if I'm already in Emacs and I need to edit this file, I just saved myself a small amount of faffing about; I've also added my local init as a site for future automations.

  ;; Update [redacted]
  (defun [redacted] ()
    (interactive)
    (find-file "/ssh:[me]@[host]|sudo:[host]:[file]"))

i know about tramp, i don't want to use it. simple stuff like closing your laptop and continuing tomorrow break (ssh connections time out)

Why does that break? Tramp should basically wake up and reconnect on all things.

It does reconnect, perhaps they've not tried it.

I still knead dough by hand but I don't expect kitchenaid to keep me in mind when designing mixer attachments.

That's a terrible analogy and there's zero chance of GNU Emacs dropping terminal support. Do feel free to fork it, though. (Emacs, not the dough.)