The thing about Arsenal is, they always try to walk it in

That’s perfect, because LLMs are incompetent, too!

I use JetBrains Rider for dotnet (with Vim emulation), VS Code for general misc code editing (with Vim emulation), and NeoVim for quick in-terminal edits and Git workflows. I even have vi-mode enabled in my terminals, but I haven’t bothered trying to do it in browser yet.

My experience is that modal editing is only a little faster, but it’s much more comfy, even fun! I enjoy coding with modal editing much more so than modeless. Being able to zip around the code without having to move my fingers to the arrow cluster just feels nice.

In my personal experience, it’s a little faster but not a huge speed difference. However, it’s much more pleasant and ergonomic. I enjoy the act of modal editing much more than modeless.