I agree with everything in the article except the implied need for an IDE-like file browser or drawer. netrw never works as I expect and seems to have too many bugs.

As one of the "old school vim users" I don't try to make vim into an IDE. I don't need a file browser at all. I use buffers and a fuzzy finder to open files. When I need to see directories and files, create directories, rename or move files, I use the shell. I can either use :term to open a terminal window inside vim, or ctrl-Z to get a shell. Or I will have a shell in another tmux window I can quickly switch to.

When programmers accustomed to VS Code or some other IDE watch me work with vim they usually notice that I don't have a project file tree or browser pane. When I tell them I don't need those they often can't believe it -- they think of the file list as something core to their coding workflow. When I use VSCode I hide the file tree and never look at it except to create a directory or file, and of course I can do that with less clicking and scrolling from the terminal window.