Maybe I'm weird but I don't use any plugins. When I want more than what Vim does I use something else. Autocomplete, find usages, etc? I'll use an IDE for that. When I need to refactor a 500MB text file without hanging my machine, I'll use vim.
These are usually attempts at reducing the need for IDEs, while keeping the familiar vim editing. With no exceptions so far, no IDE plugin (or emacs plugin, for that matter) has been able to emulate vim editing well enough to replace vim as my primary editor.
Perhaps when neovim (or anything else) is able to give me native vim capabilities in a more extensible or powerful editor, I'll switch. But we're just not there yet.
I suppose your right. I use it as a continuation of vi. Instead of a nerdtree plugin, I use a real file browser to manage the files in my project. Instead of split windows, I open multiple instances. To refactor a piece of code, I use some ex commands, buffers and maybe a macro. In that sense I'm not a Vim user. Vim is the vi implementation I use.