After using vim for a while, you don't think about text operations consciously, it's all subconscious / muscle memory. It's possible to do something like "shift+press the down arrow 4 times, backspace" in Vim by the way: "Vjjjd" or "dd...". In fact, as I was typing this comment I couldn't even remember what the right key strokes were and had to open Vim, delete 4 lines and try to consciously pay attention to which keys my fingers were hitting! So even if you have to think consciously about text operations in the beginning, don't let that scare you off as it will almost certainly become muscle memory after some practice.
Comments
After using vim for a while, you don't think about text operations consciously, it's all subconscious / muscle memory. It's possible to do something like "shift+press the down arrow 4 times, backspace" in Vim by the way: "Vjjjd" or "dd...". In fact, as I was typing this comment I couldn't even remember what the right key strokes were and had to open Vim, delete 4 lines and try to consciously pay attention to which keys my fingers were hitting! So even if you have to think consciously about text operations in the beginning, don't let that scare you off as it will almost certainly become muscle memory after some practice.