Look, it's really not that tough. Here's what you need to treat vim as a text editor with syntax highlighting:
esc (escape) = go to the default mode
i (insert) = when you want to make changes to the document
esc + : (escape, colon) = think of this as control + whatever
:w = (w)rite - save your file
:q = (q)uit - quit vim
:wq = (w)rite, then (q)uit
:q! = (q)uit!, discarding any changes
Just those few things will let you use vim well enough while you're figuring out all the really cool stuff it can do.
Emacs can be treated similiarly:
C = control
M = "meta", usually the alt or option key. You can use escape if you want.
C-x C-f = control x (do something) + control f (find file) - open a file
C-x C-s = save a file
C-x C-c = quit
C-k = (k)ill - this is similar to cut
C-y = yank - this is similar to paste
For emacs, it may be easier to start with cua mode -
M-x cua-mode
(btw, m-x means "run this function")
Cua mode gives you a copy, cut and paste that works the same as your operating system.
heh, I guess I misread what it was you were ranting about; I took it to mean that you hate any sort of learning curve when it comes to editors. Thanks for clarifying!
If you're using vi/vim for real programming, you'll want to know about tag searching as well - it's one of the better ways to deal with multi-file source code. In both nvi and vim, control-] jumps to the tag under the cursor, and control-t pops back to the previous context. (You'll need to run a program such as ctags on the source to create the tag index first.)
Emacs can be treated similiarly: C = control M = "meta", usually the alt or option key. You can use escape if you want.
For emacs, it may be easier to start with cua mode - Cua mode gives you a copy, cut and paste that works the same as your operating system.