"you need to install a half-dozen third-party plugins (and a third-party plugin manager at that) to get basic functionality working; "
What? I've never installed half a dozen anything to vim, and some of my machines don't have anything added to them, so I don't know where he's coming from.
For a long time, neither did I. Then I found a number of packages which make editing in vim, not better, but easier.
Of course, I don't find it to be all that hard to re-create my working environment: simply copying my .vim and .vimrc from one machine to another "just works".
Exactly. .vim and .vimrc are always the first things transferred upon setting up a new machine or server.
Usually directly after I open the first configuration file on the new box in vim and have a "what the heck??" moment when it doesn't behave as expected.
What? I've never installed half a dozen anything to vim, and some of my machines don't have anything added to them, so I don't know where he's coming from.