Well, there's no perfect solution. Either it's a modal system like vi, or you have to use modifier keys whenever you want to do something that isn't enter text.

Well, there's no perfect solution. Either it's a modal system like vi, or you have to use modifier keys whenever you want to do something that isn't enter text. That said, there are tricks to make modal editing less annoying. For example, mapping your CAPS LOCK key to ESC makes switching out of insert mode much easier. Some commands perform actions and then switch modes all at once for you. To extend the grandparent comment's example, you can use the substitute command, s, instead of the delete command, d, to perform the "delete and switch into insert mode" action with sfx (rather than dfx).