I might as well chime in too. I thought this was a fun way to get the motor-memory down for movement: http://vim-adventures.com/

And although I agree with the post you made, that everyone should know how the .vimrc file works, I use Vundle to help make my vim experience less painful: https://github.com/gmarik/Vundle.vim

My biggest complaint about vim is probably a common one: the key commands don't seem to have much rhyme or reason. Perhaps in Bill Joy's mind they did but even now after years of use I find myself always having my vim cheat sheet nearby.

What do you mean with key commands? `i` for insert and `c` for copy makes quite sense to me.