> I would guess that interest, passion, and motivation all play a role here.
And, to use less pointed language, people’s brains are wired differently. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another, even with similar interest, passion, and motivation.
I worked with a developer that copied and pasted A LOT and would keep his fingers on the old copy and paste buttons (Ctrl-Ins, etc.). I've even seen him copy and paste single letters. He's one of the most productive developers I've ever worked with.
I was using emacs for a while, but when I switched to vim, something about the different modes just really meshed with how I thought about what I was doing, and I enjoyed it way more and stuck to it for a couple of decades.
I see people that I'd say are more proficient with their emacs, VS Code, etc setups than I am with my vim setup, so I don't think there's anything special about vim other than "it works for me".
I've had plenty of interest, passion and motivation during my career. But never, ever, directed at learning something like vim, even if it's going to make me more productive.
I'd rather learn almost any other of the myriad of topics related with software development that the quirks of an opinionated editor. I especially hate memorising shortcuts and commands.
And, to use less pointed language, people’s brains are wired differently. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another, even with similar interest, passion, and motivation.