I don't really have a suggestion, to be honest. I've only used Emacs within the context of Spacemacs and don't know of a better alternative. Maybe sometime late

I don't really have a suggestion, to be honest. I've only used Emacs within the context of Spacemacs and don't know of a better alternative. Maybe sometime later in my life I'll look at what Emacs looks like without Spacemacs. I've been putting that off because I haven't really learned elisp and I don't know if it's actually possible to have a more flushed out and polished emacs experience without being an elisp master.