Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would probably spend more than 100 hours until I got to a point of equivalence with SpaceMacs, starting from a plain emacs. Especially since I use quite a few different languages. Ain't nobody got time for that...
The point is how much of Spacemacs you end up using?! And in which languages you work? Because, what consumes your time is not setup, with use-package setup becomes trivial really, what sucks you in is learning the plugins and how they work (cider, ensime, alchemist, magit, merlin, those are serious environments not just syntax/autocomplete plugins). Idk if they come with spacemacs, I doubt it, but what then makes th…
After a week or two with SpaceMacs I tried to start from a plain emacs and build up my own config, but I gave up. Just too much hassle for me.
I probably would not have enjoyed SpaceMacs if I had used emacs at all before. But I switched directly from Vim with no prior emacs experience, so for me it's a perfect fit.