Your last paragraph suggests that learning an editor like vim takes up enough time that it detracts from learning important software engineering principles. I'd like to suggest that learning vim, though scary at first, is not nearly as bad as all that. You pick up more and more of it as you go, and the accumulated bits of time saved over a long period more than make up for the time you spent getting over the learning curve.
"Modem-era"? I assume you don't use any "modem-era" command line interfaces, programming languages, APIs, protocols, or operating systems.
As a side note, the foot pedals are a hilarious idea, but they will in no way improve productivity in vim. Just mentioning it because of your "my editor doesn't need a foot pedal" comments.
If you are doing embedded work that involves systems that could cause harm to people or property it is far more important that a programmer understand how to write safe code and take the time to make sure it is safe than to optimize editing speed.
Nothing I have seen in my career justifies contorting ones' brain to learn the commands of a modem-era text editor. It's an utter waste of time when compared to optimizing what really matters.