This isn’t misguided if you actually enjoy doing it, although expecting everyone to do is misguided… which is probably what you were saying now that I think about it!
I learned vim in a similar way as already described here: I installed Janus and used it for a bit while learning what I liked about it. Then I moved that over into my own config. I did spend a few years tweaking my setup to death but I barely touch it now. I also mostly know what every single line does! About twice a year I read through it and if there is anything I don’t use anymore I delete it. It’s possible for it to be a mostly one-time endeavour to build up a good vim config, you just can’t be a constant editor-switcher. But ya, as @adw632 said, you’re asking for pain if you install a plugin “just in case you want to use it”.
I found consistency in the vanilla Vim world by sticking to a certain “style” of plugin. I chose tpope as a base pretty early on and mostly only install plugins that either build off of his plugins or that follow similar ethos—junegunn, mhinz, AndrewRadev to name very few. For example, I only use plugins written solely in vimscript. The exception is when a compiled language is used for performance reasons, but if it’s a fairly simple plugin written in Python or Ruby then it’s usually a hard no. A little less important is that if a plugin defined leader mappings out of the box, that is red flag for me and requires some investigation. This probably seems a little obtuse, but the leader key is my key and if plugins are touching it that is signal that the authors are potentially willing to be cavalier about plugin-related things in general. In any event, this has given me a rock solid setup for years. I’ve only ever had one conflict that I can remember (I remember it because it was really bad and I dealt with the pain for an embarrassingly long time).
