I agree with you actually. Back in the day I coded almost exclusively in Notepad when writing lots of HTML code and Basic code, for example. For the first year of Java I used it for Java because I wanted to really know the language (and without the help of an IDE, you get really, really good at spotting syntax errors and memorizing APIs). The simplicity was impossible to beat, and its ubiquity made it always available.

Maybe that's why I use vim for everything now. It's like notepad but with much more efficient keybindings :-)

P.S. I do use Intellij for java now when I'm writing Java code, mostly because I have to. That said, the feature set is amazing and for doing Java I'd probably use it even if I didn't have to because I'm spoiled. Still use vim for everything else tho.