You say "it just isn't accessible to [you]". If I'd install vanilla Emacs today or one of those distros, I'd probably feel the same, i.e. that Emacs is not for

You say "it just isn't accessible to [you]". If I'd install vanilla Emacs today or one of those distros, I'd probably feel the same, i.e. that Emacs is not for me. However, what makes Emacs great is that I can make myself at home in Emacs and design everything the way that works best for me personally, even if that is perhaps highly idiosyncratic. So my advice would be: Install Emacs and if there is something that you don't like, don't ask what you're missing, but simply change it. One thing I hated about Emacs were the RSI-inducing keybindings. And this is how I became one of the first 5 users of evil-mode (which provides vim keybindings). Over the last 15 years my Emacs config has grown to 4k+ lines and that seems bizarre, but the result is an editor that works really well with my personal way of thinking. It almost feels like an extension of my body, which means that I use it without thinking about it. It gets out of my way cognitively and doesn't add extra friction to my work which is already complicated enough. That's worth a lot to me.