[jhchabran]

"near-0 resistance" nails it.

As a Vim user, I consider the whole productivity thing about it quite over-rated. Yes it's efficient, yes it's faster, but in the end, anyone with a decent editor is going to go faster after a while.

The point is comfort. Once vim's mechanics are assimilated, you starts to memorize meaningful sequence of letters, like ci". And those sequences are just words you're typing, so typing code or entering commands is exactly the same thing.

And none of this require going too far frome the home row with your hands. This in my opinion is why Vim is so good :)