The idea that the console screen is an MxN matrix is pretty embedded in the API... it's not a MDA display adapter metaphor, not a Unix-style typewriter. I'm guessing they just felt they had bigger fish to fry.

(Everybody I know that uses the console window a lot has always just set the window to 120x9999 or 160x9999 or whatever and forgotten about it. It's one of those things that's obviously kind of lame, but after a while you just forget about it.)