One of the best things that happened to Emacs in recent years, IMO, is the Evil project (see my blog post for an Emacs user's perspective on it: http://dnquark.

One of the best things that happened to Emacs in recent years, IMO, is the Evil project (see my blog post for an Emacs user's perspective on it: http://dnquark.com/blog/2012/02/emacs-evil-ecumenicalism/ http://dnquark.com/blog/2012/02/emacs-evil-ecumenicalism/) -- now you don't have to choose between the power of Emacs an the terseness/efficiency of Vim and modal editing. After installing Evil, I've taken to calling Emacs "my thermonuclear editor".