This is just radical, heretical, blasphemous thinking but if one is going to go for a modal editing system in #emacs that is not 100% vi/vim compatible then why keep the hjkl navigation keys in 2023? My keyboards have arrow keys, my ios ssh apps have them, I don't ever use 1980's VT terminals. If I'm on something without arrow keys I'm probably doing something quick in vim anyway.
So meow is starting to shine. Press w to select a word, I have ? opening embark and there is a list of things I can do for that word: search file, search project, search help, google it in eww, make it upper case, and all of these just one more key away.
I'm saving multiple keypresses here and there yet I only burnt two or three days setting it up.