> Has anyone heard of a (serious / developed) effort to create such a product? The closest I can think of is Helix. > Esc to escape insertion mode is clearly

> Has anyone heard of a (serious / developed) effort to create such a product? The closest I can think of is Helix. > Esc to escape insertion mode is clearly a stupid choice in a modern keyboard setup, but we keep it as a default; we just haven't moved past the original decision. Nitpicking a bit, but you can also escape insert mode with Ctrl+[ and alt+any normal mode keybinding. I tend to use alt+h/j/k/l but nothing prevents you from doing for e.g. alt+u to escape insert mode while undoing the previous action.