Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ctr+[ Vim-ing on devices with not physical Esc key makes you get used to this (default configured, no extra keymapping required) Esc alternative :P
I really dislike shortcuts with `[` and similar keys. Design software also tends do use them. On a Portuguese keyboard layout[1], I need to press ⌥8 to get `[`. So shortcuts like ⌃[ become ⌃⌥8, which in vim produces `8`. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Portuguese.svg
This way I can use all the default US-based shortcuts for emacs/vim/... while still being able to easily type the special chars for my native language, e.g. pressing AltGr+o results in 'ö'.
This method is slightly inconvenient for typing long texts but for me it's still the perfect solution to such problems.