I mean rock solid as in being able to edit buffers with very different contents of half a million characters, every day for decades without crashing. I wouldn't call what you describe fragile. It sounds more like a typical learning experience. You did something, Emacs obeyed and then you who didn't like what you just did :). There is a market for restricting choice, so you are clearly not alone!
But I don't think that the Emacs learning curve should be exaggerated, either. If you start it up and follow the instructions, you very quickly become productive. What gets people into trouble is usually when they expect Emacs to be like software X which they already know, so they don't read what's on the screen and kind of skip the introduction. And then they get frustrated when they find out that Emacs is Emacs. I'm not saying that's you, or that it is stupid, impatient etc. or whatever. I'm just saying that I've seen it quite a few times.
But I don't think that the Emacs learning curve should be exaggerated, either. If you start it up and follow the instructions, you very quickly become productive. What gets people into trouble is usually when they expect Emacs to be like software X which they already know, so they don't read what's on the screen and kind of skip the introduction. And then they get frustrated when they find out that Emacs is Emacs. I'm not saying that's you, or that it is stupid, impatient etc. or whatever. I'm just saying that I've seen it quite a few times.