Emacs is an interactive programming environment for building your own text editor. It is what you make of it. Vanilla Emacs is very middle-ground, just like you

Emacs is an interactive programming environment for building your own text editor. It is what you make of it. Vanilla Emacs is very middle-ground, just like you say. My personal Emacs is an extension of myself, with lots of functionality only I use. Emacs lets me utilize my skills as a programmer to enhance my everyday interaction with text. This is the promise of Emacs. It is what you make of it.