okay, why is nethack on lunix lame?

I really like the windows nethack client. why can't the lunix ones be like it? i basically set it up as a slightly dressed up console, and that works fine for me. but for some reason in lunix, the actual console doesn't work right for me - characters sometimes drag, as it were, and some of hte options [highlighting pets, for instance], breaks things. perhaps i misconfigured the fonts or something. both the graphical interfaces, Qt and X11, seem ugly, unconfigurable, and unusable. gee, thanks! i mean, if the console worked...