The defaults are just fine. The thing you ask for does exist in the form of spacemacs, doom emacs, and whatever other emacs "distributions" exist nowadays (I have never used one)

The thing most n00bs should be taught first is that emacs is self documenting. Hit c-h t (ctrl-h t) to get the tutorial. Hit c-h m to get documentation on the current mode you are in. Hit c-h k followed by a key (or key combo) to see which elisp function a key calls (even just normal letters call a function). Hit c-h f and then type a function name to see documentation on a function. Oh yeah, and hit q to exit any of those help documents and get back to the file you have open