i was pretty impressed that my final pair ended up being fira code and fira mono, so i tried switching my terminal font from bitstream vera sans mono. it looked

i was pretty impressed that my final pair ended up being fira code and fira mono, so i tried switching my terminal font from bitstream vera sans mono. it looked markedly worse - i switched back within a couple of minutes. i think your point about the displayed text size affecting my judgement is spot on.