Unfortuantely, too many modern programs are not designed to do what you commanded it and try to believe they know better than you do (which is often wrong, anyways). (The other problem is often not designed that expert users can use and can be programmed and used with other programs (e.g. using pipes).) I think that vi is better, in this way; it does do what you commanded it, and can be programmed and used with pipes, so it is better.

Nevertheless there are such thing as adding a confirmation message in case of a dangerous operation (and, if necessary, and option to disable such warnings). For example, C compilers usually have warnings, and you can disable any warnings that you do not want.