The interesting thing to me is, that I don't feel vi and modern programs do things that much differently. In vi, Esc puts me in command mode, in any modern GUI

The interesting thing to me is, that I don't feel vi and modern programs do things that much differently. In vi, Esc puts me in command mode, in any modern GUI Editor (at least on windows) Alt puts me in command mode (Jumps to the menu). Yet, I seldom use the wrong mode accidentally on modern applications, yet constantly on vi. One part, as you said, is probably down to visibility, but a highlighted menu item could just as easily be overlooked. Maybe vi's main problem is the command mode as default? I always pondered if I would make as many mistakes (or would have found it quite so confusing as a new user) if edit mode was the default.