The reason you want to learn a decent text editor is the same reason you want to learn to touch type decently fast--you don't want to have to think about moving

The reason you want to learn a decent text editor is the same reason you want to learn to touch type decently fast--you don't want to have to think about moving around, or using your mouse, or swapping some words when you're trying to just write code. Also, there is a difference between "easiest to learn" (e.g. uses keyboard + mouse) and "easiest to use" (e.g. keyboard navigation). In the hands of an expert, Emacs and Vim are more efficient than other editors--in a very real sense, they are easier to use, but only after you learn them. Learning how to use an editor well enough to be efficient is an O(1) task. The benefit to using a powerful editor efficiently is O(n) to however much programming you do. Unless you don't plan on doing much programming, learning how to use a good editor is worth it. There are some other reasons as well (e.g. Emacs is extremely consistent, customizable and supports every single thing you can imagine doing in a text editor, and then some). However, I think this is all secondary to just being more efficient and not having to think or switch contexts (e.g. never going from typing to using the mouse to using the arrow keys and back to typing).