Here's the major benefit of investing long-term into emacs.
Not only do I have virtually the same, infinitely configurable interface for coding in any language, I also have that interface for most things I need to do in my workday. On top of coding in my day-to-day I:
- manage my task lists
- manage clients and projects
- keep a daily journal and other notes
- draft documents and create templates
- search through or replace in multiple documents
- navigate directories and manage files
- do quick calculations and tables
- and much more
All using the same interface, without having to reach for a mouse or switch to a different program. The amount of cognitive load and context switching this reduces is great.
The only other tool I use that is as flexible is the web browser, but it's nowhere near as consistent.
Of course it's emacs, so if I chose to I could also manage emails, newslists, blogposts, pong, etc. etc.
If I'm playing with a language that is much better served by an IDE or vscode, then I can always use it for that language. However I find that a) those features that made me want to switch weren't worth losing the other powers and I eventually end up back in emacs; and b) often the language's emacs package will eventually end up with that feature anyway.
It is absolutely worth the investment.
No, you're not going see this benefit in the first month of learning it. It'll be incremental over years of using it.
As far as configuration goes - Yes, you can spend lots of time in configuration, just like new linux users tend to spend years distrohopping. But it's not necessary. I suggest that if you learn vanilla emacs first, you'll figure out which keybindings you really need to change later on.
My configuration has been stable for years, and the only time I need to edit it is if I've added configuration for a new package. I don't use overlays like evil or doom, so perhaps this provides a bit more stability, I don't know.