I use emacs with evil-mode, and I don't have a problem with startup time (and that's without emacsclient, which I always found too annoying to deal with).
My issue is I don't really like emacs' mode of operating, and even with evil-mode it still seeps through.
I also don't like lisp.
> I also don't like lisp.
You don't like programming? That is precisely how that sounds.
Most programming languages in use today, one way or another, were influenced by Lisp.
If you seriously into programming, I suggest re-evaluating your point of view about it. Learning and understanding Lisp will make you a better programmer. I am not trying to sound like a patronizing dick. I honestly wish someone gave me that advice a long time ago. Who knows, maybe I would've become much more accomplished today.
I tried starting with emacs. Then I tried Spacemacs and Doom Emacs, and began to realize that if the way to make emacs manageable was to treat it like vim, I might was well just do that. So now I use neovim.
Fast startup times are solved by never quitting emacs :) Really, emacsclient starts nearly instantly, and all the heavy stuff like language servers and emacs proper just run in server mode.
(Disclaimer: I know enough vi and often use it.)