I've tried dropping an Intellij several times while programming Scala, but have never figured out a VIM/Shell configuration that gives me what I need.

That is: - Type safe re-factorings (why would I give up on my type system to just go grepping around my code base?). To be honest I don't use variable extraction as often in my Scala code as I did in Java, but to have never used it makes me think you are severely undervaluing the whole type safe re-factoring universe. - Automated import statements. - Configurable code formatting.

The IDE space is improving dramatically in Scala, but I do think the Scala teams blessing of Eclipse was a mistake. They should have been writing more generic tools/hooks to empower their users in a wide variety of development setups.