Hello ~orchard,
I'm a long time emacs user (since 1993), and I use vi almost daily, too. "vi" that is, not "vim". I cannot agree, that vi key bindings are "simpler". They are different. And I think, this is important: vi and emacs come from different points of view of the computing world back then, when they were created. To compare one to the other is difficult.
A resource that I find helpful is "Mastering Emacs" by Mickey Peterson
https://www.masteringemacs.org/
I never groked emacs-lisp, but I do use selectrum,consult and friends for completion, magit to talk to git, tramp to connect to remote machines, org-mode, org-roam, mu4e, elpher, and a few language modes. Since recently I also use the modus themes plus jetbrains mono fonts. My init.el uses 38 packages as I type this. So I consider myself a moderate user of elisp packages.
Yes it takes time to master such a tool. But I never had to learn another editor after emacs. Entering text in a web form (like now) is not really comfortable, imho. If you really want to explore emacs, then start using it for a small set of tasks. Do not try to set up /everything/ at day one.
~bartender? Another lemonade, please.