> You can work when you know enough do common textual operations to add remove and modify text, search through existing text, jump around to different files in the project, and run whatever constitutes a build.

It is one thing to know enough and quite other to be proficient in using them effectively. With the horrible and unintuitive default keybindings it takes even longer to develop muscle memory.

> One can read the entirely of mastering emacs and the cider docs in a reasonable period of time for example.

Yes one can in theory. But again if everybody could become proficient in something just by reading manuals then we could shut down our expensive schools and colleges and any sort of practical training. Also, everyone could then program in `ed` or TECO.

Curious, have you actually met any other person who's not an emacs user in real life, like ever? Here's an experiment, go to any decent software company and ask 5 new hires who've never used Emacs, give them the manual and see how long it takes them to actually do something significant? Then give them VSCode and compare notes.