While it shares some similarities with Angular 1 semantically, Vue.js is at its core extremely different. The framework is very light and entirely component based, meaning that the concept of DOM elements as directives and controllers goes away. It also does away with dirty checking so you can use Object.defineProperty to set up read-only array values, something that was causing us to run into infinite digest loops in Angular.
There are lots of other differences but in general, the transition from Angular 1 to Vue.js was relatively painless. There's a small learning curve when getting used to the data-binding through getters and setters but once it clicks it's smooth sailing. Hope this has been helpful.
I don't understand why no-one wants to admit this so maybe I'm wrong but yes, I would say that's 100% true. Vue.js feels like a cleaner and slimmer version of Angular 1.
Another bit that rubbed me the wrong way about A2 is all the uber-magical stuff going on and all the pitfalls it created. Trying to understand why you need to put an @Input() on targets but not sources and what the actual consequences of that are took me way longer than I care to admit.