> Most notably, it turned out that having arrow keys on my home row is a great idea.

Those are the original vi cursor movement keys, so when you're in command mode you can move around without leaving the home row (and I suspect it was originally used on systems without arrow keys...). Tried and true for multiple decades. :)

Edit: Actually, it's not the same as vi cursor movement keys, since it uses i for up, instead of having them all on the home row. I didn't notice that originally, but anamexis comment reminded me. :/