Well, the stats for old players are subject to survivor bias.
> The tiles version has laughably low information density, I can't imagine playing it for any extended period of time.
I cannot speak for DF specifically, because perhaps the tiles do indeed have bad distinguishability, but from purely an HCI point of view images can contain a lot more visual information than a single character glyph + a color can, so that does not hold up generally.
What may apply to you is that you have already learned to "read" the ASCII mode, and therefore have to spend less conscious effort to make sense of it than of the tiles version, and that it therefore is indeed easier for you to play in.
In any tiled implementation of roguelike, Tiles are way larger than equivalent characters, so clearly in practice they don't.
Humans are very good at recognizing different letters. Images that differ by a few pixels, not so much. At the resolution at which the letters are displayed it's impossible to have an equivalent image that is recognizable in any way.
The fact is that in ascii mode I can see a large chunk of the level, including the entirety of my character's field of view. In tiles version, my screen is not large enough. I have to scroll just to see what my character is currently seeing. How is this better, or playable at all?
I'd say I played a lot of Pixel Dungeon on my phone compared to this.
Not everyone who grew up with DOS games has fond memories. I'm not one to chase the latest 3d graphics, but sometimes new things can be better for some people.
Maybe because they're not used to ASCII look? What are the stats for old players? The tiles version has laughably low information density, I can't imagine playing it for any extended period of time.