Thanks for the tips!

I've been studying other's .vimrc files in an effort to understand what all vim vanilla is capable of. Once I get that dialed in, I'll look into plugins for my local box; I just want to make sure that I can use it effectively just by firing up any new VM.

Also, I'm being sacrilegious and setting myself up for primarily --INSERT-- mode, since its the most like a GUI text editor. Its making the barrier of entry slightly more endurable!