I started working with the Linux framebuffer a long time ago. The penguin boot logo was cool, but the biggest benefit was being able to code in a 128x43 (or bigger) terminal without running X. I see KMS as the long-overdue fulfillment of the dream I had then of decoupling high-end video support from X.org.
Back then I was using links2 in graphical mode, fbi for viewing images, and fbgs for reading PDFs. Since I'm working with web apps and WebGL now, I'm obviously running X.