You would be surprised at how many people, programmers or not, experienced or not, don't know those and other basic shortcuts. No wonder Vim's motions sound like necromancy to so many people.
As others have mentioned for fuzzy finding, use CtrlP. I also use FuzzyFinder for quickly switching between many open files (buffers).
While we are at it…
I never really used TagList or equivalent widgets in other IDEs/editors as an outline of my code but rather as a navigation tool. :CtrlPBufferTag is great for moving around in a large file. Same thing with :CtrlPTag for navigating a project. I love CtrlP.
If the "you" is me you don't need to convince me at all: I'm a diehard Vimmer.