A lot of this advice is about turning vim into a "modern" text editor with a language server configured.
I used to use vim but lately I switched to Helix, which is basically vim but with all the good features and plugins built into it and without a configuration/extension language. Almost all of the features are easily discoverable by just pressing spacebar, and the rest by browsing the (small) documentation, and I can think of a way to do all the things Bram talks about from within Helix, often better (because it's relying on the language server).
Still, the main point about learning your tools by detecting inefficiencies and searching for a better way is always valid, and I'm sure that all these things Vim was already doing at the time helped pave the way for modern editors. RIP.
