EFI isn't about 2+TB drives. That's just GPT, which could have been implemented in a traditional BIOS. EFI was created because Intel needed something for the Itanium chips to run, and they didn't want to implement OpenFirmware.
EFI came to the PC because Apple wasn't interested in starting a 16-bit 8086 programming division, and the rest of the industry followed suit because it was easier than squeezing more things into the 16-bit BIOS. Now that we've got both EFI and GPT widely available, we can have machines that can do things like fetch and install their own firmware updates and we can have sane dual-booting.
However, in the meantime, we have to live with "complications" like a frequent lack of support on Linux for decent console drivers in UEFI boots. For example, technically the nVidia proprietary driver doesn't support framebuffer console on UEFI boots, and if you don't get the parameters just right, you can end up in the hilarious situation of typing your full disk encryption password blind to a blank screen visibly indistinguishable from a crashed bootloader.
EFI came to the PC because Apple wasn't interested in starting a 16-bit 8086 programming division, and the rest of the industry followed suit because it was easier than squeezing more things into the 16-bit BIOS. Now that we've got both EFI and GPT widely available, we can have machines that can do things like fetch and install their own firmware updates and we can have sane dual-booting.