I think for some people that's the appeal: they want Dwarf Fortress style storytelling but the game's UI/graphics/etc are too difficult to learn/understand. So they are willing to give up some complexity of interactivity and world for a game they can play.

I wonder how much the Steam release for Dwarf Fortress will help that? Tarn is explicitly focusing on a default iconset and better UI, although the release date is set as "time is subjective"...