You're not crazy, you're spot on. As long as a new user understand vim insert and command mode (and how to :w) then they should be as productive as if they were

You're not crazy, you're spot on. As long as a new user understand vim insert and command mode (and how to :w) then they should be as productive as if they were using any other editor. When I started learning vim all I knew were the command modes and how to move around using hjkl. Slowly over time I added more commands.