I'm making the transition to vim as well. My wish list was similar to yours. But I've decided to adapt my expectations to be a better fit with how vim works. In

I'm making the transition to vim as well. My wish list was similar to yours. But I've decided to adapt my expectations to be a better fit with how vim works. In many editors, a tab and a file are equivalent. In vim, you have buffers (in-memory representations of a file being edited), windows (views on a buffer) and tabs (sets of windows). Since in vim a tab is not a file, trying to make that file-per-tab model work may be possible but seems to lead to several pain points. I'm using the Command-T plugin to navigate the file system (to open files) and to change between opened files (i.e. buffers). I usually work on a single tab, splitting windows when needed, and alternating between buffers with ",b" (Command-T to show current buffers and select one) or "]b" (next buffer). If I need to work in two different window layouts, I can open a separate tab. That is rare, though. Additionally, I'm using the Ag plugin to search in files and the qargs plugin to replace text in the searched files.