I used to run linux directly, and use the console from there (xterm, tended to be the safe choice, coupled with tmux).
Now I run windows from a laptop, and remote into a linux VM. The gitbash console used to be nice for this, but I ended up going with cygwin for the extra programs it supported.
I also used putty (in the form of superputty - tabs and nice cut/paste support).
Having putty style keys (a gpg file of some sort) and gitbash-style ssh (a kind of virtual unix-like fs mapped to windows fs) was a pain, so I decided to just switch to one.
Given that I was going to use cygwin now, putty was out, so I figured on just using the cygwin console, which uses the same fs-mapping as gitbash. that said, it's not the same mapping (different directory), but I believe you can install a cygwin-based version of gitbash? In any case, I'd sooner get the same functionality by copying the gitbash config myself (so I know what's going on), so I figure on just customising the cygwin shell.
Except I discovered ConEmu, which seems better (managing to attach any other window is nice, now I can put my powershell in there, plus any repl I like). Now I can just ssh in to a certain 'dev/hack' workhorse server, from which I run a persistent tmux session (plus a load of other services) and connect to any other server from there.
Still thinking about the security implications of this though.
Also, hackpack is a nice idea.