Re: Do MUDs need to be "brought into the 21st century"
There's no reason why you couldn't use a roguelike tileset as a graphical replacement for an ASCII map - drawing the world, but not the creatures and objects within it. It's not uncommon for muds to offer ASCII maps, and this would serve the same purpose, it would just look more attractive.
If you wanted to use additional icons within each location, you could use a single monster image to represent the presence of one or more monsters, a single treasure icon to represent the presence of one or more items of loot, and so on - more symbolic than anything else. Or you could use some form of stacking, as ForgottenMUD suggested.
But even if you just stuck with the map itself, and ignored creatures and objects, I still think it would be a significant improvement over an ASCII map.
To be fair, it's becoming increasingly common for people to use energy bars and icons instead.
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