By "command line", I don't mean with a curses interface like lynx or w3m. I'm looking for a web browser that is purely command driven.

You don't normally think of them as "web browsers", but could you be wanting something like "wget" or "curl"?

I would compare what I am looking for to the ed text editor. When I start ed, it doesn't dump me into its own interface or print the contents of the file assuming that is what I want to see. It just reads the file and waits for my input.

That's kind of what I'm looking for. I'm tired of navigating through information I don't care about, moving the cursor to the link I want, and closing intrusive ads. I want a browser that reads the html file and waits for my input before it does anything else. In other words, I want a browser that is command driven.

Check it out- this sounds like exactly what you are looking for.

http://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/

I was going to suggest it wouldn't take a lot to knock up some perl to do simple stuff if you knew what you wanted (in advance).
Might have to have a look at surfraw myself.

Lynx would complete the task