For instant startup I recommend daemon mode and emacsclient. Start emacs via emacs --daemon, open windows (in the terminal or otherwise) via `emacsclient` / `emacsclient -nc` (I use aliases for these).
As an aside, having it running in the background was actually the way the original EMACS that ran on ITS was intended to be used: When you C-x C-c out of it, it does not kill the program, it simply puts it in the background, and the next time you invoke EMACS it brings it back up. This is similar in effect to hitting C-z, then using 'fg' to bring it up again, but this only really works in a terminal. The Emacs server achieves the intended effect better, especially on a graphical display.
emacsclient is useful on its own. For example, I use it to edit just about any text, in any input box in any app, delegating the task to Emacs, or when I want to open some URL in Emacs, while browsing a web page in my browser, or to send some selected text to Emacs.
Not that you can't work that way (and using `emacsclient` is the way to do it), but you're losing out by trying to shoe-horn usage patterns familiar from other toolchains onto Emacs. Emacs is not a text editor, it's a text manipulation platform that includes an editor - a number of editors in fact, including a vim clone.