C-c most definitely causes conflicts. It is where "mode-specific-keymap" lives, which is the default and conventional prefix for custom bindings. While it's nea

C-c most definitely causes conflicts. It is where "mode-specific-keymap" lives, which is the default and conventional prefix for custom bindings. While it's near-empty by default, various modes bind things inside it. By the time I learned of CUA mode I a) got used to C-y/M-y/C-w/M-w; and b) already written "free-rectangle-mode" which gave me the same freedom of movement when selecting rectangles. It was one of my first emacs hacks :) Combined with rect-mark mode it would probably look very similarly to CUA rectangular selection, but I didn't feel the need for showing visual rectangle. Also default rectangle handling has a big advantage of starting both line and rectangle selections with the same key. Anyway, I'm not surprised people don't use CUA very much - I think that by the time they learn about it it's already too late for them :)