Haven't been following much of Dwarf Fortress, either, but according to the post, I'm confident that they care. For instance, the 1.0 version should have a more consistent interface, tutorials and context-sensitive help menus.
It's probably just that there are plenty more things that they care more about than revamping totally the UI.
I understand they're working on the game out of passion, but I feel like they should bite the bullet and spend a good chunk of one of their update cycles on the UI. I remember reading patch notes one time, where they literally re-wrote the entire damage system to account for more things. (swords don't do as much damage when wearing armor, maces cause bruises and broken bones through armor, etc.) It's not my project, and I don't want to sound entitled to something I can play for free, but I feel like they could take time away from simulating muscle fibers or something ridiculously detailed such as that, and make the game more easily playable. It honestly still feels like the debug interface a developer might put into a game with all the odd keys you have to press to activate one thing or another.
That said, they can work on what they want, as they're the developers. And they're providing the game free of charge to anyone who wants to play it. It's just a nice pipe dream of mine to be able to play the game without spending a month learning how to navigate the menus :)
It's probably just that there are plenty more things that they care more about than revamping totally the UI.