> I suspect "better defaults" won't happen because it's not a continuing problem users have
As the plethora of startup kits and re-configurations show, it's also not something people can agree what the right thing (TM) is.
Emacs, VIM, and a few others let you adjust them until you find a sastifying workflow. Other will have you bend backwards to modify the “defaults”.
Almost everything can be converted to a text workflow and emacs has a lot of features for text based interfaces.
For me at least it took a few weeks initially to get a set up I liked but then have barely touched it in ~15 years. I suspect "better defaults" won't happen because it's not a continuing problem users have - like maybe you think about it when you're in the initial setup, but then it becomes less important to any developers.
It's an advanced tool, and typically advanced tools don't come out of the box ready to go.