I don't think you can call modal interfaces inherently bad. I suppose Gmail is a modal interface because if you pull it up and start typing you'll be issuing commands instead of composing an email, until you enter "composition" mode. But what is the alternative? Have every button on the keyboard do the exact same thing regardless of what application or part of an application is currently in use? It's fine if you don't like vim but you don't have to pitch it as an objective universal truth that emacs > vim.