Yes and no. NeoVIM is tied to key bindings as much as VIM is (so you can rebind basically anything). But yes, they basically redo VIM, so modes are definitely staying.
Thanks for the clarification. What I perceived, and maybe should have said above, was simply that it would be hard for me to make a simple GUI front-end which would follow CUA, for instance, while leveraging the solid back-end.
Which is why I gladly welcome the xi project :)