[addicted44]

Listing vi in there shows that the OP, even if they may have good points in general, is limiting what good UX is to certain specific attributes, whereas developers want to optimize for additional attributes.

And this isn't just me saying that because I like vim. It's because of the objective fact that nearly every developer tool that is created will include a vim mode. And if included as an extension it will often be one of the most popular extensions. What that objectively indicates is that there is a large contingent of developers who genuinely find the vim modal editing UX excellent, to the point they seek it in other tools as well (including browsers, mail clients, RSS readers, etc).

[werg]

Yes, you are right I didn't put that very well. Modal editing really has a lot of benefits, even if I personally don't go for them (am more of an Emacs guy).

What I would say is that vi really doesn't give you a lot of interactive context -- and it's hard to add it on.