I don't use vim as my go to editor so I may be asking a silly question; does it just use idiotic defaults or something? I've only met a couple 'vim users' who could just hop onto someone else's vim setup and be productive, and I've never met a single vim user who could use someone else's setup without making comments about everything being different.

I guess the question is do people modify vim cause they can or cause they have to?

If you're building a new vimrc or want a common ground for pairing, I would recommend checking out [vim-sensible](https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible) by tpope. It's a vim plugin that provides a set of sensible default options.