[JoshTriplett]

nvi definitely provides more features than the original vi, just not nearly as much as vim. And it doesn't have a comparable ecosystem of plugin/package developers around it, either.

[bch]

Is there a popularity dashboard of plugins that one could check to see what features vim users are enjoying that I've been living without?

[roryokane]

http://vimawesome.com/ has a list of Vim plugins sorted by their popularity, measured by presence in dotfiles repos on GitHub.

[danidiaz]

For a conservative list of "essential plugins", see https://www.vi-improved.org/plugins/

"surround" and "targets" are indispensable for me.