Yeah, rogue-likes/lites are one of my favourite genres, and FTL is among my favourite games. It's a genre that didn't have a place on the Game Boy back in the day, but one that I think fits really well, and one that I hope more homebrew devs explore.
I've considered the scene change with portraits for events, it's just something that I know would take me forever to do the art for, but definitely something I'd love to implement to an extent. My only concern would be bringing the player out of the gameplay too much if done every turn, so maybe only for certain event tiles.