> As said elsewhere, you literally cannot get started in Vim without knowing a dozen command and grokking modes
You need i, escape, :w! and !wq. hjkl too if you're feeling fancy. But i, escape, :w! and !wq is all you need to use Vim. I know because I used it like that for two years in college.
Ctrl-z followed by killall -9 vim is how I usually exited vim.
I once pissed off dozens of customers by symlinking vim to emacs on one of our shell servers (back when isps gave you login access to a Linux/Unix box...
(Yes, it wasn't very nice, but it was funny)
Equally, there's a difference in target audience. Do you need a tutorial to operate a screwdriver? No. Power drill? Arguably yes. CNC mill? Dear God please yes. I don't think you expect a fork lift or nail gun to be accessible with zero runway by anyone, or for their features to be discoverable by trial-and-error.
You could argue that this is not a worthwhile niche, and maybe that's right (at least for you and like-minded people) but it's just what it is.