[stepanbujnak]

The project aims to refactor vim's codebase to simplify development and allow new developers to join in by removing old, deprecated code. It doesn't say it is supposed to be 1:1 replacement only with newer code, and from what I've read on both their GitHub issues page and Hacker News, 99% of Vim users actually don't use Ex-mode. There is simply no point spending time and resources to keep in in the tree for the 1% of people actually using it. And even if ex-mode is something some people can't live without, there is still good ol' Vim.

[ritchiea]

Or they can fork neovim and start a neovim-with-exmode project!