OP here. There are lots of great tools for editing text and code out there. Finger travel was a concern due to some RSI issues I was having, but not the most important factor which is that I like Emacs and enjoy using it. I like it's sensibilities, Lisp, and the cleanness of the interface. YMMV, and I'm not at all an Emacs partisan or evangelist, just a guy who made a blog post about stuff I like.