> I load main vim instance with a fair amount of specialization (but probably less than most)

Perhaps it's just that the people who diligently curate their .vimrcs are more prone to talk about it than people who use stock or minimally configured vim. I can tell you my .vimrc right now without looking at it.

    se sm
    se hls
    se number
    se ts=4
    se sw=4
    se expandtab

It's not very exciting. Nobody ever writes a blogpost on the virtues of a vimrc that looks like this one.