In my experience novices have an easier time learning programming with an intuitive IDE, but experienced users use whatever makes the most sense given the task

In my experience novices have an easier time learning programming with an intuitive IDE, but experienced users use whatever makes the most sense given the task at hand, which in many cases might also be an IDE. They're just different tools with different pros and cons, and each of those pros and cons are weighted differently depending on what you're trying to accomplish. Very few programming workflows are so complicated that it is simply not possible to do something without first creating your own highly customized environment within Emacs. However, very, very many programmers do have a lot more fun screwing around with customizing their work environment (editor, window manager, shell, etc.) than using that environment to get actual work done (myself included). Which is not to say that Vim and Emacs aren't awesome tools, I just wouldn't generalize anything about anyone based on the tools they use.