> if only people would read man pages.

I don't like this line of reasoning, because people did read the manual. These escape characters are on the 7th page (on my terminal) and are not a feature needed to used to get the service. Most people just need to connect, maybe get an X server. That's it.

The reason I don't like the line of reasoning is because it is similar to "You should read and memorize the entirety of Python documentation before you begin programming." This is both absurd and elitist. The reason posts like this are helpful is because human memory and attention don't work like that. It is more natural to learn things as they are required (man pages are not ordered in terms of most commonly used commands, nor should it be. Man pages are a reference page designed for a time before stackexchange existed, and they are great) because you shouldn't just memorize things you aren't going to use, and if you don't use them you will forget.

TLDR: No one likes the wizard that scoffs "RTFM," it isn't helpful.