> Having to look mentally ignore ANSI escape codes in raw logs (let alone being unable to unable to search for text through them) is annoying as hell, to put it mildly.

You have a tool here, which is noted elsewhere: it's "less --raw". Also there's another tool which analyzes your logs and color codes them: "lnav".

lnav is incredibly powerful and helps understanding what's happening, when, where. It can also tail logs. Recommended usage is "your_command 2>&1 | lnav -t".