I feel that Vim is already sort of a prank in itself. One minute you're happily source controlling away in Git and the next you're stuck in some arcane console app.
You can change the editor Git uses by editing git configuration or setting the shell variables $VISUAL or $EDITOR [1]
e.g.
EDITOR="bbedit --wait --resume" git rebase -i 5f882cfdec^
I'm not saying others have to agree (because I totally understand why some people don't like vi/vim), that's just my take.
No, I don't. (only slightly sarcastic)
More accurately, I don't think "ease of use" and being intuitive to a newcomer are the only possible primary motivations for making any tool the 'default' tool of its type.
vi/vim have a long legacy of usage on Linux and other Unix and Unix-like operating systems. They have a steep initial learning curve which requires some commitment on the part of the user to get past, and because of that I understand why some people don't like them. However, in my opinion, even today it is worthwhile for users of these kinds of systems to invest in learning how to use them. I'm not saying you need to become an expert, I just think if you work on Linux, a minimum amount of fluency will be worth your while (especially when dealing with any kind of system administration - even if it is only on your own desktop Linux machine). Knowing enough to get basic editing tasks done could very well save your bacon in a pinch when things break. There are plenty of resources on the internet describing the advantages of vim, so I'm not going to try to summarize them here.
That being said, I know some people would prefer something like nano to be their default editor, because they don't want to invest the time in learning vim and/or are not convinced that doing so would be advantageous to them. I would not be opposed to having the Linux install process for any distro ask the person doing the install what they want their default editor to be. But I would still argue that vim is a good choice for the 'default default editor' in that case.
Naturally, you can always set the EDITOR environment variable yourself so that tools like git bring up the editor you want. Your editor of choice would then be the 'default' in one sense, but I believe you are arguing for 'default' at a higher level than that.
> I don't think anyone who ever first came across Vim could even figure out how to quit, let alone do anything useful. Seems to disqualify it as a useful default editor, don't you think?
It should be obvious by my above comments that I would say 'no', it doesn't disqualify it, but that's due to differing views on what properties should be used to determine what the default editor should be.
(I apologize for the late reply, I know this is a couple days old now, but I didn't see the response till now.)
many would also argue they are two of the best tools in all of software development.