You're the only one that thinks anyone is talking about popularity. The fact is that if you had something similar to a word processor (for example) natively on Plan 9, you'd be able to read and write rich text, and still have it be in the idiom of Plan 9, the plumber, chords, tools, etc. and not have to switch over to the other OS.
It's totally possible to have a (for this example) word processor without having to have icons, nested menus, clippy, bloat, or whatever it is that you're objecting to.
It's totally possible to have a (for this example) word processor without having to have icons, nested menus, clippy, bloat, or whatever it is that you're objecting to.