In the ancient times, the escape button wasn’t at the upper left corner, but to the left of Q (ADM-A3). Vi (and by extension Vim) just haven’t adapted to a different keyboard layout.

Do not fear for there is an equivalent to ESC! The glorious Ctrl+[

In this case anon just want to search and replace text in file using various text editors, but he describes it funny way:

• acme: very slow process because it requires using mouse and keyboard alternately
• emacs: faster because you don’t have to use mouse but requires pressing a lot of weird and complicated key combinations and use many modifier keys like ctrl, alt and so on, in this case description is a bit exaggerated. Also see emacs pinky syndrome
• vim: portrayed as simple and efficient, anon is probably vim user.

Although the relevant links have already been provided, the gist is

• Acme stands for some “generic” editor here, where you have to use the mouse a lot, which is perceived as slow
• Emacs is known to be very powerful (to the extend of being called an “OS with a bad editor”), but using unergonomic keyboard shortcuts
• Vim is an editor that has been designed for keyboard power users in mind, but which has the reputation of being difficult to learn