I think Emacs's greatest strength comes from the ability to use a single scripting language throughout the whole editor. I can quickly write up some ELISP state

I think Emacs's greatest strength comes from the ability to use a single scripting language throughout the whole editor. I can quickly write up some ELISP statement to do anything, if I like it I can put it in a file and load it. If I want to share it, I put it in an extension. I've just looked up the official tutorial on making an extension in VS Code. It seemed cumbersome. You need a code generator to lay the foundations, you need to consult the API docs etc. With Emacs you can learn as you go and the editor itself guides you if you ever get stuck. You can read the source of any part of Emacs you like, change it on the fly, evaluate and try it (except for some core modules written in C). And I think that's the beauty of Emacs. Emacs is easy to tinker with.