> I don’t see a particularly clear winner between them

Because deep down they are incomparable categorically. Separate the tools from the foundational ideas and you see the very different value. Vim-model of text navigation is fantastic, practical, brilliant idea. Once you grok it - you can take it anywhere. You can use it in your editor, browser, terminal, WM. Emacs is rooted in another, even more brilliant idea of practical notation for lambda calculus. These ideas have no overlap. But understanding the philosophy of each (ideally both) could open so many different possibilities.