Same is true for others, I am sure. If gimp is going to get better, easier to use, and more popular, whatever, then developers should listen to the users once and a while. Not every gimp user is going to be a hardcore hax0r who sleeps dreaming of vi commands and remembers all emacs key bindings. It's two words that make no sense together in this context. Even with my limited connection that still means only 5-10 seconds of download.
Text is easily compressible, too.
Beware though, V.42bis uses a modified Lempel-Ziv algorithm, which is the same algorithm used to compress .GIF images. You might need to get a permission from Unisys before you can receive text compressed using this protocol. That's kinda wrong. I noticed even you complained the other day, when you were asking for some grid related stuff. But that post was pretty incoherent, and I couldn't figure out exactly what you were trying to ask.