This is actually a really good guide. I use vim daily at work, and my .vimrc shares most of these settings.
One big productivity boost for me was remapping the Escape key to something a little more convenient. I just remapped the ESC key altogether, but this can throw you off if you find yourself working at lots of different computers. If you prefer something less permanent, you can map a key sequence to ESC. I like this one, which maps 'sdf' to ESC if you're in insert mode:
I typically just remap the escape key to capslock at the OS level. Even though it can through you off like you said, I still find it more convenient than key walks to generate an escape.
vf is the easiest-to-type two-letter sequence i could find that doesn't appear in any english word. other languages' mileages may, of course, vary. (and if some chavfucker wants to object, well...)
One big productivity boost for me was remapping the Escape key to something a little more convenient. I just remapped the ESC key altogether, but this can throw you off if you find yourself working at lots of different computers. If you prefer something less permanent, you can map a key sequence to ESC. I like this one, which maps 'sdf' to ESC if you're in insert mode:
jkjk is also a sequence I've seen used.