I probably define ad-hoc macros 10-15 times a day These are for tiny things that save me a minute or two each time I use one. More than the time savings, though, is the sanity savings. I've it's rare now that I do any sort of repetitive editing task.

Also, you don't have to actually program the editor yourself to reap the benefits of a programmable editor. Let's be honest, most modern editors have mostly overlapping functionality. However, one of the benefits of emacs being programmable is that it's self documenting. I can find out how to capitalize a word problematically without having to go to google by using `M-x apropos RET capitalize RET`.