In my classification of editors:
1. Orthodox. Mostly focused on looks and integrations.
2. Modal, Vim improvement. Focus on keeping basic Vim keybindings with minor improvements.
3. Modal, rethinking Vim approach.
Ki falls into the third category which I constantly monitor.
I am working on a modal code editor project that you might find interesting then. It also operates on an AST directly, which is represented as UI nodes which closely resemble normal text layout. Email in profile if you’d like to give it a try and possibly give early feedback (still in early development).
Vim improvement
So Ed Visual Mode Improved Improved!
Exactly the same for me. So far, there have been many challengers but the same champion (subjective, I know).
4. All of the above.
Which is Emacs.