> Projects like oh-my-zsh are nice because they provide a much richer default that lazy folks like me can use without ever having to know or care about how to actually configure a shell because the alternative is that I just won't do it.

Thanks for giving me a different perspective. For me, it bugs me to not know what's built-in vs what's configuration. For example, I recently discovered that option+arrow key to skip back/forward words was an OSX Terminal feature when it didn't work in iTerm2. So I configured it to work how I wanted in my .inputrc and now it should work everywhere.

Starting with the defaults and changing things as you get an itch to scratch seems like a better way to learn long-term, but I can see just wanting use someone's template and be done with it. I guess it's the difference between frameworks and libraries, and between people who use someone's addon pack in World of Warcraft vs just using a few addons and designing their own UI.