Emacs guy since '97, strongly agree. If you build your own config, the Ikea effect takes hold and you feel like you've made something that's "yours", even if it's mostly cutting and pasting (or using AI) to cobble things together.

I think bedrock is reasonable, and so is Prelude (https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude). I used to have a sprawling init.el, but these days is pretty compact (236 lines), mostly using straight to install packages and then configuration for gptel, agent-shell, and various hydras (https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra) to quickly execute various functions.

There is a middle ground -- https://codeberg.org/ashton314/emacs-bedrock or minimal starter kits like it.

Especially if you don't want to use an agent to help you get started. If you're using an agent, starting from vanilla is much more feasible.

Agreed. Work through the Emacs tutorial to find out how vanilla editing works. Then look at buffer management, window management (Emacs 'windows' are actually more like frames in other apps) and simple tooling like search. Then start to tweak some settings in your config, find the bare minimum of packages you need to scratch your worst itches (for me: Vertico, Corfu, Avy and Dumb Jump). Finally, figure out tree-sitter modes, project/projectile mode and a couple of other foundations.

It will be a struggle. It was around 2 months before I felt remotely comfortable in Emacs. And nearly a year before I really felt at home. It's a long road, but gradually you mold the editor to yourself so tightly that you'll never be able to go back. The remarkable thing is that the progression never stops. The tool just keeps getting sharper and sharper.