It is not for Vi refugees. It works too much like Emacs.
As a hardcore Emacs user, I am seriously tempted by Viper. It is all the good stuff about vi, but without having to use vi (or give up anything in Emacs). I have tried it, and it is not exactly what I want, but it is certainly close. (I have used Vim, and it is everything that I don't want.)
Think of Viper as vi + emacs, where Vim is vi + <something else>. This is why Vim users don't like Viper.
As a hardcore Emacs user, I am seriously tempted by Viper. It is all the good stuff about vi, but without having to use vi (or give up anything in Emacs). I have tried it, and it is not exactly what I want, but it is certainly close. (I have used Vim, and it is everything that I don't want.)
Think of Viper as vi + emacs, where Vim is vi + <something else>. This is why Vim users don't like Viper.