As someone who pretty much exclusively uses debian, freebsd and openbsd for server OS work, I was also rather surprised recently to see the default web gui that comes on a new fedora install.
Keeps the server-side backend minimal and auditable.
Also walrus from old, old UBNT forum? If so, hello :)
That is a nugget, it's so true.
Wrappers in general are such an issue in software. Wrappers built on top of wrappers, this desire to abstract everything away makes things look simpler, but every layer slows things down and hides what is actually happening. Every wrapper is another layer of complexity, another hoop to jump through when you're looking for a solution to a problem.