[microcolonel]

At risk of coming off as flippant or mean, I think you completely missed the point. It is a productive and stable editor environment which runs in various ways across all major computer platforms. It has a veritable mountain of established extension code, modes for performing tasks outside of software development, and portable configuration. The keybindings are considerably more consistent than the alternatives, and if you don't remember them you can always use the in-built searchable help system, or try to tab complete it in the M-x prompt.

These things are not 'historical', they are the things which have been so permanent that after thirty years they are still useful.