I think that it's wrong to assume that vi is the only route to deep muscle memory. Heavy mouse users develop blindingly fast Fitts’ Law targeting. And if you need essential simplicity, they have far fewer commands.
Bill Joy, the original author of vi, saw the vi commands as a problem, not a solution [1]:
The fundamental problem with vi is that it doesn't have a mouse and therefore you've got all these commands. In some sense, its backwards from the kind of thing you'd get from a mouse-oriented thing.
well, i've got this in my muscle memory too for a reason (that linuxes tend to use vim instead of vi and enable mouse there by default):
:set mouse-=a
> Heavy mouse users develop blindingly fast Fitts’ Law targeting. And if you need essential simplicity, they have far fewer commands.
Even if you remember the general placement of things? You still have to consciously track where the pointer is and when it will be on target. I was better with old applications where everything was accessible, bit in this era of low density interface and deep navigation, it’s not great.
The Acme editor is a great example on how to use the mouse. Every click results in an action. And a customizable interface so that you can have what you need at the ready.