> ...code base full of weird special cases ... _often_ turns out that all this cruft is there for a reason. It's essential complexity... (my emphasis) If it's

> ...code base full of weird special cases ... _often_ turns out that all this cruft is there for a reason. It's essential complexity... (my emphasis) If it's often, then it's not always, which means that in some cases it could be done better. Is Vim one of those cases? I don't know, but you don't give any reason to suggest that it isn't.