"Do it the way it's meant to be done!" ... NO. Do it the way that works best. If you can get around easier with hjkl, go for it. If you find the arrow keys to be WAY faster, use them. All that matters is that you get the job done. If we always did it 'the way it was meant to be done' we'd never have progress.
I would disagree with that. You have to think about what will be more productive once you have learned both ways. Sure walking is faster than a bike when you don't know how to ride a bike, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't learn how to ride a bike.
But in the context of talking about how to navigate within vim, it's really worthwile to use hjlk instead of the arrow keys; it's provably way more efficient.
For those interested, you can remap to use 'jkl;' with:
" Navigate with jkl; instead of hjkl
noremap ; l
noremap l k
noremap k j
noremap j h
Except that you press J, K and even L way more times than H and thus is makes a lot of sense having them right there under your strongest fingers.
In all seriousness, though, I personally don't like having to reach with my index finger to move left. I tend to think of 'jkl;' as being a more efficient set of arrow-keys. (Where, with the arrow keys, your index finger goes left, ring-finger goes right, and middle finger goes up-down).
If you can hack it with 'hjkl' more power to you, but I found it extremely annoying to have to 'reset' my hand position every time I wanted to type text in insert mode.
What do you mean, please? Do you mean you were resting your right finger over H?
Did you not consider keeping your hand in the standard place? I very rarely use h, and when I do it is a simple moment of the index finger. Backspace has nearly the same functionality as h, and movement keys like b, ^, and I (enter insert mode at the beginning of the line) are typically much more useful.
Except that arrow keys do not blend well with other commands, for instance I wonder how V<down>d can be "WAY faster" than Vjd to delete two lines. Also, I wonder how reaching for the arrow keys can be "WAY faster" than pressing the keys which are right there under your fingertips.
Power tools are designed that way for a reason. If you fail to understand the reasons, and you feel smart about using a power tool like a dumber one, well...
OTOH, having alternative "dumber" ways to get things done while you are learning is helpful.