I agree. Yes, hjkl are no longer a single cluster in Dvorak, but jk are now on one's left hand for vertical movement and hl are on one's right. So it has that advantage. Like you pointed out though, you want to avoid overusing those keys to move around anyway.

I did learn Dvorak after Vim. Yes, it meant there was a second layer of added pain. I stopped using vim for a couple of weeks altogether, learned Dvorak to the point where I could touch type again (although more slowly), then went ahead and retrained the muscle memory for vim.

For anyone not used to using vim, vim users get to the point where they think "change word" and their mind maps that to top row middle finger, bottom row middle finger. There's no middle step of "change word" -> "cw". So just learning the muscle memory for letters isn't sufficient for then using vim as fast as you could before. At least that's how it was for me.

As someone who also started feeling RSI symptoms in his early 30s, I definitely recommend learning Dvorak and picking up a split keyboard. I like the ergodox, personally. The straight columns seem to help too. I think other alternative layouts and ergonomic keyboard combinations have their merits too.

For anyone else hesitating, observe how frequently your wrists end up in awkward angles while typing on a regular qwerty layout. That and the pain I started to feel is what motivated me.