My emacs binds the arrow keys to move by character and alt+arrow to move by word. But M-f, C-f, C-M-f (and ditto for -b, -n & -p) are a pretty powerful command

My emacs binds the arrow keys to move by character and alt+arrow to move by word. But M-f, C-f, C-M-f (and ditto for -b, -n & -p) are a pretty powerful command language for dealing with text & code. You're right that syntax matters: and emacs has a very nice syntax for dealing with text & code. vi is probably better, but I like emacs and am used to it, so I don't bother with spacemacs. CUA bindings are … not good.