>> I would eventually throw emacs into a state where
>> it wasn't in any of the evil modes, then
>> bash my keyboard with C-X C-C.
I think the snippet of code in linked article in section 'Escape . . . escapes things' fixes most of the situations where you'd get stuck in a non-Evil mode in Emacs. It's a must have for me, otherwise I too got frustrated with getting stuck in Emacs minibuffer/command line and <esc> not getting me back to Evil-mode in main buffer. I also turned off the bell in Emacs, which helped psychologically.
I think the main problem is that in vim everything works like a buffer. When I browse files or any sort of search results, I can use the standard vim key bindings to navigate through or even dismiss the window.
With emacs, it seems like I have to learn the system to even use some plugins like projectile effectively.
I think the snippet of code in linked article in section 'Escape . . . escapes things' fixes most of the situations where you'd get stuck in a non-Evil mode in Emacs. It's a must have for me, otherwise I too got frustrated with getting stuck in Emacs minibuffer/command line and <esc> not getting me back to Evil-mode in main buffer. I also turned off the bell in Emacs, which helped psychologically.