I find this response baffling. Are you seriously claiming that normal people (non-developers) would do better using Vim/Emacs rather than a Notepad-like editor? Or that most normal people aren't used to Notepad-like editors?

I despair...

Not even that. For instance, gvim comes with an "easy mode" (just start it as "evim").

In this mode, it acts very much like Notepad (you're automatically in insert mode, and you can just use the File menu to open files, save, and exit).

I'm not sure how much having this mode buys vim, however, as there's no gradual way to progress from "easy mode" to more advanced vim use. Except for the syntax hilighting it offers, its users might as well just be using Notepad, nano, pico, or what have you.