A reason to stick so closely to the original model is that it has lasted 35 years. There are few other programs that have lasted as long without feeling an urgency to change with the times, and mostly by the base system being similarly stubborn about changing or by being incredibly simple.

The fact that it's, essentially, the same on every OS I use it on is another selling point. I bring my .emacs file and make minor tweaks for different OSes (due to where files/programs are if absolute paths or relative paths in the user home directory are different). It always works the same once I've made those small changes (and they are small, and once done my Windows .emacs is good on any Windows box). Again, there are few other programs like this. At a minimum, you often end up with subtly different keybindings (macOS using the command key, Windows using control, and Linux using control or alt) and subtly different layouts that break workflow and habit.

Yep! Main reason I use emacs is that I can use just about the same workflow when I'm programming in python, C++, etc. in different environments like windows gui, windows WSL, linux GUI, linux terminal, remoting through ssh, ssh into docker container, etc.

For those of us that have used emacs for a long time, it is the other items that feel foreign. And, quite frankly, I'm not sure I'm missing anything from the others.

It is annoying that Apple has a command key that I have mapped as Meta. Since that means if I try to copy something in Firefox, closed tab. That said, why are the keyboard shortcuts in so many other applications so destructive? And crappy? Browsers could be forgiven if they were just for viewing, but you edit in them a lot nowadays, such that the browser not having easily customized keyboard bindings is a laughable insult for user centric design.

(Do they even still pretend to support user stylesheets anymore?)