I'm in the opposite boat: i stuck with Janus and actually dug in the source and played with it to understand exactly what was there. Janus is incredibly awesome and easy to extend, I'd highly recommend you gave it another chance and really read the docs and try to understand why it is what it is. Must have plugins are also https://github.com/tpope/vim-surround and https://github.com/tpope/vim-repeat