That's fair, although now and then I have to do some repetitive task and using bufdo or a macro has saved a decent amount of time. And compared to something like notepad, all the little details probably save time. My average time savings has probably increased significantly after I stopped spending a lot of time creating custom vim scripts and syntax files.

It is fun because it is fluent. vi has a language.

    I’ve been a long time vim user, and I honestly never really bought into the efficiency claims. That gets repeated over and over, but If you’re a slow typer then no editor can really make much of a difference.

    Little by little your movements become more complex and efficient, and the journey to figuring that out is fun and interesting.

The slight contradiction in your comment has a lot of truth in it.

    It’s just fun, and I don’t think that gets talked about enough

Yes yes yes. Vim can absolutely lead to more efficient text editing, but I agree it has more to do with the fun journey than with typing speed.

vi definitely doesn't scratch that "itch" for everyone in the same way. But for me, it's as though I found a cheat code. Getting better at vi feels like getting better at a game - only practicing this game makes you better at any number of tasks that are relevant to your daily work.

(although if you also want to get better at typing speed, there are surprisingly fun roguelikes on Steam for just this purpose)