I agree with this basic idea, though I understand why some people have a difficult time seeing it. VI and Vim are advertised as "modal" editors, but in fact they are just editors that accept a rather terse command language.
I originally never wanted to use Vim but had to use it often at work (especially in the server room), so I got used to mechanically entering and exiting insert mode as many people do. That was the extent of my knowledge, but then during a slow period at work I took the time to learn Vim thoroughly by reading "Learning the vi and Vim Editors" from O'Reilly. It changed my view of VI and Vim to the point that (as I had said) I now think of them as command-based editors rather than modal editors. Once you realize that each key press is a command in a very terse language, you can see the power and expressiveness of the language, but it takes some practice and time to build up your intuition.
For example, I often find myself typing something like "79a-ESC" or "79i-ESC" to put in a horizontal rule in text or Markdown documents. To somebody thinking modally this command makes little sense, since I leave insert mode immediately after typing a single character! But from a command language perspective it makes total sense, since I merely instruct Vim to append 79 dashes to the current line. Once you see that it's a language, you stay in command "mode" much more, since that is where the power is.
I originally never wanted to use Vim but had to use it often at work (especially in the server room), so I got used to mechanically entering and exiting insert mode as many people do. That was the extent of my knowledge, but then during a slow period at work I took the time to learn Vim thoroughly by reading "Learning the vi and Vim Editors" from O'Reilly. It changed my view of VI and Vim to the point that (as I had said) I now think of them as command-based editors rather than modal editors. Once you realize that each key press is a command in a very terse language, you can see the power and expressiveness of the language, but it takes some practice and time to build up your intuition.
For example, I often find myself typing something like "79a-ESC" or "79i-ESC" to put in a horizontal rule in text or Markdown documents. To somebody thinking modally this command makes little sense, since I leave insert mode immediately after typing a single character! But from a command language perspective it makes total sense, since I merely instruct Vim to append 79 dashes to the current line. Once you see that it's a language, you stay in command "mode" much more, since that is where the power is.