Unfortunately, remapping escape to caps lock can lead to serious friction if you have to work with different laptops a lot, like I do. The muscle memory gets in the way a lot.

I always remap Caps Lock to Ctrl. I understand that Caps Lock needed to be next to Shift in typewriters, but in computers it seems like it is wasting a key in the home row for only be used sometimes for screaming (which can be done by holding shift...)

Which is why I never went with CapsLock being both Ctrl and Escape depending of whether it's part of a key combo because it's whole setup. On the contrary, whenever I use someone else's machine I can quickly go in the settings, set the option and then set it off after I am done.

If only keyboard makers would just always put escape there.

Ctrl-[ is accepted across Vim installs

Ctrl-C also works.