At least with VIM the standard commands are good enough to make one productive on any VIM installation.
With emacs, you have to do so much customization before it becomes useful that you find yourself completely lost when using another installation. Try helping a friend only to find out all your commands do not work...
> you find yourself completely lost when using another installation.
That can also be true for the workstation.
Example: I remapped my caps-lock key to ctrl. Swapped the top row around so the numbers and and symbols are reversed. Stuff like that.
Not even getting into customizing desktops: I use Enlightenment, the other devops guy uses what looks like a bastardized Window Maker and we'll never be at home with each other's computer.
With emacs, you have to do so much customization before it becomes useful that you find yourself completely lost when using another installation. Try helping a friend only to find out all your commands do not work...