In my opinion anyway

And what I use mostly if not daily
- vim (text editor)
- mocp/mpd+ncmpcpp
- mplayer (video player)
- calcurse (calender)
- mutt (mail)
- gpg (pretty good privacy)
- links/w3m (www browser)
- gpm (so you can click links in w3m)
- kismet (wlan sniffer/etc)
- snownews (rss reader)
- lftp (ftp client)
- mc/ranger (filemanager)
- weechat/irssi (irc client)
- CenterIM (msn messenger/yahoo client)
- fim/feh (image viewer)
- ImageMagick (gimp for the console- kinda )
- htop/ttyload/conky
- rsync
- abcde (cd ripping)
- screen/tmux
- ceni
(admin note: this is NOT a place to flame/troll, you WILL be punished if you do)