OK, well vi doesn't technically suck. But my experience with vi so far has sucked. There is a benefit to the menu-driven interface. It's one of the reasons that PC software has left others so far behind in popularity. You can run a text app with a menu just as fast as one without, and it only costs one line of your display. That's a small price to pay for GREATLY enhanced learnability/useability IMO.
If you are interested in Unix and all its flavors, learn vi.
No matter what box you land on, I guarantee it will be there. Emacs probably won't. Don't get me started on LaTeX.
Trust me on this one, I get paid to know this stuff.