Somewhat related, I started out using Emacs and have since moved to using vim. I'm at the point where I feel semi-proficient in it, and I've started playing around with .vimrc, pathogen-based addons, as well as other stuff like ctags a bit, and based on my experience so far this extensibility and customization is what makes the text editor so powerful compared to other ones (although I can't really speak for Emacs since I didn't get as far with it).

That being said, I've recently started picking up an interest in lisp (currently slowly making my way through sicp), and I've seen indications that Emacs is somehow more suited to lisp development than vim. As a result, I've actually been considering switching back again, despite emacs pinky, although I'm still on the fence about this.

If anybody here has some knowledge about what Emacs offers in terms of lisp development that vim doesn't (or vice versa) and/or has some good references, I would be very interested to know.