Emacs is one of the best GUI programs because they add functionality on top of the terminal version, like image support, different font sizes at once, and the window separators not being part of the text so highlighting text quickly is easier, but it keeps the first-class keyboard support it's always had.

I think the average GUI was designed for mouse-first and the lowest common denominator, so it'll generally never be as good. It's similar to how irssi and weechat are top-tier chat programs, but nothing in the XMPP or Matrix world really seems as good.