Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of as I slice and dice in vim. But short of recording an editing session for an hour, making note of the things I actually edit, and then trying it with both keyboard/mouse and vim a few times each, I'm not sure how to empirically determine which is faster for me.

Also, a lot of people compare it to "moving your hand allll the wayyy over to the mouse and back", but I do a lot of coding on my laptop, actually, with my trackpad just inches away from the home row.

I could potentially even learn to use the trackpad with my thumb without even leaving the homerow. I wonder if anyone uses it that way?