You do have to memorize a ton of arcane key strokes just to get around in your editor though. I bet that time invested is a big reason why some coders hang onto terminal editors.

IMO you shouldn't have to do "research" to setup your editor or even simply to use it effectively. With VS Code everything that you need is already integrated and clearly stated - Ctrl+Shift+P to find any command Ctrl+P to open any file in your workspace (no file browser needed). When you want to expand - you have the integrated Extensions marketplace.

And all things are accessible via the keyboard in Code as well as in my preferred desktop environments (XFCE or Windows - macOS, not so much, which is why I don't prefer it). Having the mouse to fall back to is not a bad thing, particularly when you visit someone else's station where they might have configured their editor or desktop differently than you.

If someone gave you a different 500k+ file codebase to maintain, I'd bet that you'd need to browse around a bit before you got familiar enough with things to not need a file browser.