If you need complex file manipulation, all of that can be achieved by writing a shell script. That's what I've been doing. You also automatically get access to flow control statements and tools like sed/awk/find.
> all the text editing features that I have in vscode as opposed to the barebones text editing features in the terminal.
VSCode is a very primitive text editor compared to vim, emacs or helix. You don't need to edit the command line right there in the shell prompt, nor do you need to create any files — press Ctrl+X + Ctrl+E and hack away. Save and close the file (ZZ in vim, for example), and it gets executed by the shell.
> then oil.nvim would not have been such a popular extension
Popularity is a bad metric, most people don't bother to learn the tools they're using.
> all the text editing features that I have in vscode as opposed to the barebones text editing features in the terminal.
VSCode is a very primitive text editor compared to vim, emacs or helix. You don't need to edit the command line right there in the shell prompt, nor do you need to create any files — press Ctrl+X + Ctrl+E and hack away. Save and close the file (ZZ in vim, for example), and it gets executed by the shell.
> then oil.nvim would not have been such a popular extension
Popularity is a bad metric, most people don't bother to learn the tools they're using.