[yogo]

1 & 4. It would be nice if there was a great way to make those curses like popups work better but that's just a limitation due to the environment. After all remember vim runs anywhere without needing x or some gui.

5. Maybe you have something specific in mind as far as the console goes but !cmd works for me (I use vim on Linux).

8. Mixed modes is an issue? Vim is good at what it does because of all the things that are possible due to modes.