Absolutely, some people just love vi. Sometimes it fits their mental model, other times someone told them "real programmers use vim/emacs" and so they internalized and studied it. That's why most modern editors still have a vi mode. Obviously it works for people.
But if the 1980s UI Scientists came back with their stopwatches, I don't think the median vi-mode user would "win". Unless they were using a really slow terminal. (obv, we probably have some 1%ers on HN)
That may be true because 1980s UI scientists were most concerned with building efficient and intuitive UIs for the vast majority of people, not for 1%ers.
I know that I, personally, would not have been able to take some of the notes I took in university if it weren’t for vim and its affordances. Trying to keep up with a fast-writing math professor while typing a complete set of notes in LaTeX would not have been possible otherwise!
But if the 1980s UI Scientists came back with their stopwatches, I don't think the median vi-mode user would "win". Unless they were using a really slow terminal. (obv, we probably have some 1%ers on HN)