The biggest impetus to avoid using the GUI in my experience is when you are tired of doing the same damn steps you do everyday and want to automate it. Once you

The biggest impetus to avoid using the GUI in my experience is when you are tired of doing the same damn steps you do everyday and want to automate it. Once you reach that stage, telling you so is preaching to the converted and then it becomes a matter of whether the actions you do on the GUI can be replaced by a series of commands that can be invoked programmatically. If they can't be, you do need _that_ GUI.