Actually, if you are in 'insert' mode in Vim all the time "you're doing it wrong". Vim shines when editing and tweaking existing code. You should be in 'normal' mode almost all the time, where you do your "thoughtful, creative, deliberate process" by reading and navigating the code base, and reformatting, moving, copying and deleting code, to get it just the way you want.

If you are just doing straight-ahead typing, you're right, Vim won't help.

The book "Practical Vim" has a nice analogy with how artists work. "Pause with your brush off the page." Painters do a lot of things besides applying paint to the canvas. "The painter does not rest with a brush on the canvas. And so it is with Vim. Normal mode is the natural resting state."