Toward a "modern" Emacs

I think the think Emacs most needs is a variable my-first-emacs, which you can set to any previous or current version of Emacs and have that be the default configuration. With that, they'd be able to change the unadorned default configuration radically to attract new users without upsetting existing users, who would simply need to record when Emacs was right for them.

This would allow for proper handling of features that are objectively improvements in behavior but counterproductive for people who developed habits without them. For that matter, a lot of behaviors could be tied (by default) to a system where users can tell Emacs go to a more recommended configuration when the users want to devote some time to retraining. This also gives a path to softening the learning curve, where the default modern configuration is something intuitive but inefficient, and users who do that particular thing enough to care can put in the time when they choose to and get comfortable with the unintuitive efficient way. I like to remember that all of us are casual users of nearly everything, experts at a few things we've intentionally put time into, and idiosyncratic about some other things we've never really thought about. Having a system that does what the user wants for each of these cases is only possible by having different behavior depending on the user's history and changing when the user wants to.