I disagree. As someone who started using Vim recently, the issue wasn't learning modes/key sequences as it was just reaching feature parity with my previous edi

I disagree. As someone who started using Vim recently, the issue wasn't learning modes/key sequences as it was just reaching feature parity with my previous editor (note that doesn't mean "acts like my previous editor", just "is at least as capable as my previous editor"). If I can't open files really quickly, I feel lost and upset, so I took care of that very early in the learning process by setting up CtrlP. Same with some other plugins. More generally, to me, the features that happen ship with Vim aren't special. I want the best editor for me, which might require features the builders of Vim didn't want to include. Vanilla is just another flavor.