I have never encountered a non-HiDPI setup where non-bitmap fonts looked especially different or good, so I don't think my OS[1] is relevant. If you look at screenshots of classic Mac OS it has a beautiful timeless look to the fonts, that I feel I similarly get using Terminus in my terminals. I also wanted to list an old Windows version out of fairness, which would be 3.1, I guess, but when quickly looking up screenshots, it doesn't look quite as good as I want it to. Your first instinct that my setup is wrong when I'm commenting on the state of fonts as a whole tells me you're probably used to the blur. Most people who aren't already a bit weird about their terminal fonts don't seem to understand or at least don't seem to care when I talk about the blurry font problem.
[1] But I'll tell you anyway so I don't seem like an asshole. I'm using Guix System GNU/Linux and the Sway Wayland compositor on my primary PC at the moment.