The default text editor (gEdit) is a competent equivalent of notepad++, it's just that you have to enable some things which would do programming better.
Agreed, but bear in mind that the author is already having to learn a bunch of new software packages to replace many other things from his previous experience.
Being able to delay a few new learning experiences for later makes for smoother switching.
By the time he's ready to tackle that one, he might be ready to skip past ST and go straight to Vim. ;)
Having to deal with the weirdness that is the simulated 'windows file system' every time you open when running a Wine app is much harder than just learning how to use gEdit with all the plugins you'll ever need. Or Kate.