Yes; I've been using Vim for nearly two decades now without plugins. I have a small .vimrc, but that's it.
The main reason I do so is that I frequently login into a variety of systems where I have no control over what version of vim is installed or what base packages are available. As such, even if I bothered to place the relevant plugins in my home directory, I may not be able to use them.
At this point in my life, I tend to stick with software that has the best defaults and requires minimal tweaking.
That makes it quick and relatively painless for me to recreate my development environment wherever I need to.
The main reason I do so is that I frequently login into a variety of systems where I have no control over what version of vim is installed or what base packages are available. As such, even if I bothered to place the relevant plugins in my home directory, I may not be able to use them.
At this point in my life, I tend to stick with software that has the best defaults and requires minimal tweaking.
That makes it quick and relatively painless for me to recreate my development environment wherever I need to.