Rick,

Keep in mind that I'm a very recent emacs convert from a "more powerful" IDE - specifically JBuilder...

The reason why *I* use it is because it's FAST. My brain already works much faster than my fingers, and the last thing I need is to be waiting for my IDE, or fighting through the GUI to open a file, etc. I would be perfectly happy switching to something like Eclipse if the speed was equivalent to emacs... I occasionally download it, but after waiting for a "project" to open, I dump it. I just want to be able to get in and get out of files as fast as possible, no pausing, no delaying...

Emacs speed and file navigation converted me.