What the author talks about is similar to saying that a Linux desktop environment won't make you a productive developer due to the vast customization/ricing you

What the author talks about is similar to saying that a Linux desktop environment won't make you a productive developer due to the vast customization/ricing you could do - themes, i3wm, etc. Yes the first few months of time-sink with Vim was perhaps a tad bit obsessive but now that I've settled into a config and workflow that works, there isn't any possibility of me going back to something else. Just like I finally have a i3wm config that I've been happy with for the last year or two.