I don't mean to say that you shouldn't find and use plugins, because there are some really great ones that answer real needs.

But it seems that a lot of people new to vim get distracted by plugins, tweaking their config, et al, when they could be learning the "vi way" to get their actual code editing productivity.

I disagree to some extant. I've been a power use for more than a decade and some of the default ways of doing things are just wrong. It is true though that people are reluctant to learn about what vim itself already provides - more people should use the fantastic help system (once you know the basics) rather than rely on blog posts for everything, too.

The general idea is that if your productivity relies on external plugins, it will drop very low as soon as you have to use someone else's machine, or when you have to work with lots of various systems where setting up your environment isn't an option.

I think it's more that everyone is taking the bus to Abilene. Can you explain the first point a bit more? On the second point, you can always :e scp if you need to.

I've never maintained my own .vimrc, or know what plugins I have installed or not, btw.