I don't think the analogy to woodworking is sensible. The problem with dull tools is twofold: (1) the wood can be damaged and so the task has to be started anew

I don't think the analogy to woodworking is sensible. The problem with dull tools is twofold: (1) the wood can be damaged and so the task has to be started anew and (2) the woodworker can get injured. Neither applies to the problem at hand. The problem at hand, as others have pointed out, is about switching tools. I switched from decades of using emacs because stretching for key chords started to hurt my hand. I went to vi. It was a pain for a few days because my hand-brain had memorized emacs. After about a week, I was able to do simple things without errors. A few weeks after that, it started to be fun and I got to the point where I could work as easily as I had in emacs. And then, owing to plugins, I started to get more productive. Here's my advice for folks switching to vi: get a medium-sized postit note and write a couple of common key sequences on it. Add new sequences as you need them, but don't bother for things that you only do once in a while. After a few days you'll need to tape the note down, because you have been removing it repeatedly to add new things. Use tape to hold it down. After a few weeks you won't need the postit note. But spend an hour or so each week reading up (or viewing videos) about vim things -- not things you need, but things that interest you. This hour is your long-term investment. As for configuration, I wasted a heck of a lot of time on that (in both vim and emacs). A few months ago I switched to lunarvim, which is a neovim that comes in a state that already has a ton of things I want. That's my advice for anyone switching to vim ... go past it to neovim, perhaps trying lunarvim as your variant. (There are other variants, and I've not explored them. I did some web searching and it seemed as though lunarvim was well regarded. All I can tell you is that I feel no need to switch.)