I always have this feeling, that console is more about tools that you can run (such as unix commands), than just some console improvements (like command history, copey-paste, etc.). I think the article focuses more on the latter.

Anyway, for people who really need some linux tools, cygwin is some viable option.

For hardcore hackers, I'd run an instance of colinux. you can the whole linux environment within windows with almost no performance overhead. (don't forget to configure "cofs" for windows files access.)