On the whole I find Newlife too limiting, other games have long since overtaken it.
Keep in mind this game is over 10 years old, SO's blogpost goes back to November 2014. Even back then I feel it might've been dated but that's what gave it appeal. I remember people would come in here and ask why there's no visual, "it's such a simple way to enhance the game!" Nope. There's thousands of visual games out there, go play those. Newlife was pretty special, at least to me.
Shout out to the one person who recommended Perchance and now everyone is trying it. I've started 4 stories now, though my main one is still the route I would take when playing Newlife. As someone else said I also enjoy writing and editing so I don't mind reviewing the AI's work. I'm actually having fun tweaking what it gives, better shaping the next paragraph and so on.