The first time I ever opened emacs it didn't have anti-aliased fonts. I shuddered and closed it immediately. At the time I was looking to learn a serious text editor so I turned to vim because gvim actually did have nice fonts. I struggled with that for a little while before discovering that emacs had just improved on the font front. Emacs made so much more sense and I kind of fell in love with it.

It does still have some quirks owing to its provenance but if you turn off the toolbars and choose a decent font it looks as good as anything else. Emacs is a lifelong journey. It's like playing a musical instrument. The possibilities are endless and you'll never reach the end but whatever stage you're at you'll still have fun using it.