I'm perfectly honest: I don't like most of the "Rogue-like" games I've tried thus far.
I don't seem to understand why they are so special.

So instead of starting a rant about "Rogue-likes" and how fanboys simple tell me its one, so it simply has to be awesome,
I'm simply going to ask:

Why do you like them?
Why are they so special that the term "Rogue-like" is used as a positive attribute to a game?

personally i dont like rogue like games, id much rather play hunt the floppy disk that has the original verson on it (i know i could download it but thats no fun)

Well,that means that the game provides a generaly healthy challenge in a interesting environment.
Atleast that´s what it means for me.

I'd say there are two main reasons:

1) They are nostalgic, like playing video games in the arcade back in the day. You don't have save games playing Pac-Man or Space Invaders at the arcade. You go as long as you can on one quarter.

2) They tend to be somewhat easier on the twitch reflexes. Since when you die, you die, the game is geared as such. While many games, knowing players will abuse saves, tend to make some of the mini-bosses and bosses tough as heck because people will attempt it over and over again.

To be honest, it comes down to whether one gets more upset dying a bazillion times trying to get past each mini-boss. Or whether playing awhile and dying once, means game over, start over.

There is no fuss about it as far as I can tell. If there is, its the same kind of fuss that RPG's get, FPS's get, pick a genre.

What kinds of games do you like? Do you think by chance some people don't like those kinds of games that you like?
Well, there's your reason for why people like rogue-likes and you don't.

As humans are all individuals with their own preferences, likes/dislkes when it comes to food, weather, automobiles, body type, tv shows, movies and games.
Your question is so vague and broad-ended that It can be asked regarding any single thing on this planet that one person likes and another person doesn't.

Randomized levels make them what they are. You never get the same experience twice.

I think that's what i love about em to most, too.

Since the main game mechanic is dying and restarting a lot, I'd say the experience is very much the same all the time...

False premise, I'm afraid. It's just the word for the genre consisting of games that resemble Rogue. If a game a roguelike and you like roguelikes then you might like it because that is the kind of game you like. If you like racing games then the term "racing game" is a similarly positive attribute. "Roguelike" isn't a special case - it's the same for all genres.

I'll be honest: I don't even know what rogue-like really means. I hear Rogue Legacy is a "rogue-lite". To me it looks like a Castlevania/Metroid-type action platformer. FTL is supposedly a roguelike. I found it's a space adventure with random encounters, and you prepare your ship in order to defeat the Mothership.

So, roguelike = randomized caverns/etc. ?

The way I see it, the current popularity of Rogue-likes is part of the reason why people (some, at any rate) have turned away from some of the more established franchises in favour of, say, hardcore platformers and this entire notion that "dying is fun" - brutal difficulty, the desire for genuinely challenging gameplay and disappointment with the mainstream industry stripping these parts from many of its games to create more flashy, "cinematic", less frustrating experiences uninterrupted by any setbacks whatsoever that might as well be actual films. I'm looking at you, Assassin's Creed!

Though not Rogue-like by any means, the sales figures of games like Demon's/Dark Souls are a testament to the growing demand for experiences that put the abilities of the player to the test. To me, this focus on difficult gameplay seems to be a constant in Rogue-likes. Permadeath only adds to the tension because you're constantly afraid of losing all the progress you made and having to start over, and the randomization not only adds a good deal of replayability, but also makes sure you can't just memorize every single obstacle the game throws at you.

Roguelike = exploring randomized caverns/forests/space sectors/labyrinths and dying a lot

The first level ups and items give the sweetest rush in any game so they turned it into a general concept. ,_,

Where does the name come from? What's so rogue about exploring said forests, etc.? Because to me a rogue would be a person who either makes his living by stealing, backstabs people a lot, and so on, or either a person who was a good guy but,...went rogue. You know. And why is it rogue-like? It's kinda like rogue, but not quite...?

All of this confuses me. And it has for a while