I'm with you that the defaults aren't my favorite... but as a heavy Sublime user I was able to migrate the bindings over that made sense to me... Intellij products are insanely configurable.
Also - I would either use their cloud sync and/or VCS to back-up your customizations. It sucks switching to a new computer and losing a day re-configuring your IDE back to baseline =|
Is it easy to use VCS for that? Last time I checked it wasn't [1]. In fact, that is maybe the main thing keeping me from learning IntelliJ tools more: I'm not comfortable with programs that I know I will want to customize but can't just git add the customizations to the dotfiles repo.
I've done it in the past but I'll admit it's been years since I've used it. The cloud sync thing works just fine for me and fits well with the subscription model etc.
Looks like they may have gone off the deep-end with the configuration files - I remember the ability to export to a MUCH smaller file but this was probably 4 years ago at this point.
Also - I would either use their cloud sync and/or VCS to back-up your customizations. It sucks switching to a new computer and losing a day re-configuring your IDE back to baseline =|