[vectorpush]

Fair enough, but I've heard similar reasoning espoused from other vim users who were reluctant to transition away from arrow keys. Perhaps you might find the productivity dip worth it in the long run, but I am not unsympathetic to the cost of shaking the routine up.

[WildUtah]

In .vimrc:

    no <Right> $
    no <Left> ^
    no <Up> <C-U>
    no <Down> <C-D>

That should be enough to help newbies to stop using the arrow keys and put their right hands on hjkl as the Gods intended.

[eridius]

I can vouch for this. It's much faster for me to hit "jk" (my preferred mapping for escape) than it is to hit the Escape key. And given how frequently you need Escape in Vim, the time adds up really fast. It's also just a lot more comfortable, because my hands can remain on the home row.