Using the Esc-key for vi(m) is crazy nevertheless. It's a really long reach.

Personally I have rebound Left Ctrl to Esc, and Caps Lock to Ctrl, but an option would be to rebind Caps Lock to Esc. 'jj' is also fine, but since rebinding Esc to a closer key, I started using it a lot more often, where I would have used the mouse.