on a server a GUI is optional. on a desktop/laptop a GUI is mandatory. supporting a GUI is more work. so if you are server focused, then why bother? making that effort only makes sense when you actually do want to also support desktops. and of course you can use a desktop device as a server. all my home servers so far have been desktop devices. but they never had a GUI because i had no use for it.
Agree. Other than drivers, which Server OS will have less to deal with. I also wanted other point out GUI is the majority of the work and polish on consumer OS. Far more than what ever kernel, driver, filesystem sitting behind it. And that is ignoring the apps.
Consumer OS is basically totally different beast, it is not that I don't want FreeBSD to go down that path. But given the limited amount of resources I would much rather they focus on doing something great.