Comment by tmalsburg2

I largely agree, though to be fair, I did spend quite a bit of time tweaking my config and learning elisp during the first two years. At the time I was a PhD student and could afford it, but today? not sure. It was quite an investment of time but since I spend my days mostly processing text (code and prose) it paid off spectacularly well. Side note: Emacs is massively underappreciated as a tool for writing prose. So many wonderful tools that make writing more effective and pleasant.