Yeah, I don't understand this theory that if your tools are at all configurable or learnable you'll be compelled to waste time yak-shaving them. I think you're right that the problem is with the stuff you're NOT doing. I use emacs every day, but there's a ton of stuff I don't use emacs for because the investment to become proficient in the emacs solution won't pay off in my circumstances. There's a middle way between writing code in nano and getting lost trying to program emacs to do your job for you.
As with everything (programming languages, build tools, optimization, etc.) there are people who go much further into the rabbit hole of text editors than you could practically justify in your own work, but 1) they might be doing it for some intrinsic satisfaction rather than out of delusion, and 2) thank goodness for people like that, because they build and improve a lot of the software we benefit from.
