Those ungodly edge cases are what makes vim usable everywhere, and the default of the defaults on so many systems. That trusty vi command that works a certain

Those ungodly edge cases are what makes vim usable everywhere, and the default of the defaults on so many systems. That trusty vi command that works a certain way has been dependable since the late 1970s. But, that misses the point of Neovim a bit -- Neovim is about letting the community in (with all the good, and bad that comes with that). I suspect most people won't shift over to Neovim until either (1) They want to actually contribute something and find Vim proper far too daunting, or (2) because of the entirely new plugin model, some amazing plugin is only available on Neovim and it drags them over from Vim. The Neovim plan seems to be "in months to gain momentum, in years to gain trust" -- which is really the only way you can do it.