I used emacs at a very basic level for many years, and then I switched to vim and I was very happy. The way of vi fit me so much better than all the chords with emacs. I used vim for about 10 years. Lately I've transitioned back to emacs, because VimL/VimScript or whatever you call it is a nightmare, and I began looking into org mode in emacs and I wanted it very much.

So I installed emacs with evil, got into a place where vi key bindings didn't work and I was stuck. So I turned off evil and stuck with normal emacs for a while. Until I knew I wouldn't be stuck if I got thrown out of vi key bindings. Then I turned evil mode back on.

No need to wait a year or more. Just Get a basic familiarity with plain emacs and then switch to evil. You get the best of both worlds.