I was only looking at the best use of my time to deep learn an editor. I was considering sublimetext as well as emacs. I just thought Vim would be good, as long as I started with vi first and built on up to Vim. I say this after reading an interesting answer on Stack Exchange where some be goes off on the philosophy of vi. Was an interesting read and got me thinking.
Also I wanted the ability to use a simple ssh utility from my android or iOs tablet. Do you know of any good mobile implementations of emacs that would work with your idea of using tramp?
No it really isn't. At best you can probably rely on vi being on most *nix servers, but vi is not vim. So if that is your reasoning make sure you learn vi and not (only) vim.
Also if you are in a position where you might be dropped into some older and more obscure environments, make sure you have at least a working knowledge of ed.
Thanks for the tip about ed, I can do the basics with it.