Insert mode is for noobs. ;)

Just recently I've been starting to rely on 'a' and 'A'. Maybe I could switch to ijkl

In default vim, i inserts to the left of the cursor. In ijkl, you simply map h to insert left of the cursor. It's even on the left of your new arrow keys so the mental map works better too!

I'm a huge ijkl fan, because I learned wasd long before I learned vim.