I am wondering what information you could find out about the network you are using by sending commands to the router? Same question goes for sending commands to the switch. Also what information could you not find out unless you saw the actual network hardware?

The information available from the command-line depends on the specific router and switch models and the type of network they are connected to. Likewise, so does the information you couldn't find out, although the device's paint color is probably a universally unsupported piece of info.