[bla3]

If your brain prefers that order, you can emulate it in vim by doing v-movement-action, for example viwd to first select an inner word and then delete it.

[b0rsuk]

I tend to do that whenever I'm unsure what my action will actually affect. Pressing one more key is a price I can pay.

[JoshTriplett]

I do exactly this when I'm doing complex commands and want to select-verify-run. Most commonly, something like vi(c where I want to confirm how the parentheses are nested before the operation.