Can something like this be done with vim?

yeah, I'm also curious if we could use VS Code backend + Vim front-end.

Install the vs code vim plugin and VS code's editor runs with vim key bindings (including editing modes): https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vscodevi... You can use any of VS code's remote editing plugins.

Alternatively the vscode-neovim plugin actually embeds a headless neovim inside vs code: https://github.com/vscode-neovim/vscode-neovim It's perhaps a bit more complete and featureful vs. the other plugin (like it can run all the same plugins and lua config as neovim) but IMHO it's kind of confusing and weird to have two editors running at once, configured independently.