I have a similar experience, I started to use Emacs with my first Linux installation way back in the late 90s together with pico (later nano for fast editing). A few years ago i came to know about sublime text and I was astonished how much can be done with it and how quick it was compared to Emacs. Sure it does not contain all the goodies Emacs has but i after getting sublime text i realized how much time i saved and focusing on code. Recently i stop bothering and moved to VSCODE and its pretty damn good.

I miss sometimes Emacs but i prefer to use VSCODE nowadays as its a much modern environment and brings me directly to the point of comfort. I also tried Neovim but i was not convinced to replace VSCODE, i mostly use it on the console for quick and dirty editing.