I was in a similar situation, tried a few times but always bounced off. In the end, a job where I had to use vim (because connection to our remote dev machines

I was in a similar situation, tried a few times but always bounced off. In the end, a job where I had to use vim (because connection to our remote dev machines was abysmally slow) forced me to learn it. I think that even then for some time I used to say that any love for vim is just a symptom of the Stockholm Syndrome. Then at some point I discovered the "quicklist" feature, which with :cex system('...') became my conversion point. Now I'm also fully in the "Stockholm Syndrome" victims† camp, and do love my oppressor, for a few years already... Only sometimes for faster browsing/reading with a mouse I switch to some "classical" IDE with a files pane and quick navigation, like IntelliJ or VSCode. † "vi-ctims" pun not intended; but then...