That it is an advantage does not naturally and unfailingly translate into being a linga Franca.
"vi" being so common (ie. "lingua franca") is what gave it an advantage.
I took it to mean "so common that it's available almost anywhere" (which is consistent with the context of the comment).
I've found it extremely useful to rely in tools such as the ones you just listed. Specially because they are often present even in light vms were perl might not.
Yes, I would consider awk and sh lingua francae (?) alongside Perl – but in slightly different contexts, namely low-complexity jobs.
I find Perl slightly more suitable once things get a little complicated, mainly because it's footgun:power ratio is better than awk (few footguns, but also very low power) and sh (many footguns, not that powerful).
I have come across plenty of boxen where bc was not installed, so I don't put that in that bucket.
And yes, if I want to describe text changes in a highly portable way, I will use sed (or ed, depending on context) rather than, say, unified diffs. I could accept an argument that unified diffs are also a lingua franca for more complicated changes, but they are harder to write.
awk, bc, and sh are POSIX base utilities, they are literally preinstalled on every unix derivative.
That doesn't make them linga franca, which is what Scarbutt was asking about.
Hell, ed is a POSIX base utility. Does that make ed's command mode the linga franca of text manipulation? Of course not, the thought is preposterous.