It sounds like you would like god-mode: https://github.com/emacsorphanage/god-mode
I'm a light weight emacs user (mostly for org mode). I'm forever grateful to the dev I worked with who introduced and encouraged me to learn the vi bindings.
I'm probably missing something in your message, but there is support in the shell for vi bindings (https://opensource.com/article/17/3/fun-vi-mode-your-shell)
The barrier to switching, for me, is that the vi-like modes are set up by default to have vi-like keybindings, and I just don't care to go in and change them all to Emacs-alike keys, and I worry how flexible other software with "vi mode" will be about that. I am past the point where I'm going to use hjkl to move the cursor around, I use npfb. I can easily change the details in Emacs/Viper, but then how am I going to use anything else, like the shell? That is my main worry.