I'm not really commenting on vim. I actually had a previous comment written where I said almost exactly what you said. I'm not even saying one is better than the other, just that the author's understanding of Emacs was, IMO, less than complete.

The funny thing is both vim and Emacs have these weird learning curves: Emacs starts easier (you can actually type something; wtf is a mode?!), then vim becomes easier (modes and command composing over finger gymnastics and pages-long key bindings), then (and this is, of course, my opinion) Emacs with its programmable everything starts to shine. I wonder how much of the editor wars are simply where people are along that continuum.