I'm a Vim user, not Emacs and don't know anything about the ecosystem, but I just wanted to say I've never ever convinced myself that the hundreds of hours I've put into hacking on my Vim setup is "productivity". It's all recreational. I really enjoy it and it comes with a nice shot of adrenaline when you're able to tweak your environment just how you want it. I imagine it's the same for many Emacs users.