The irony is that the vim camp can use just the same "argument" here about emacs. So that is a weird comparison to want to make here.

> The editor is older than most devs after all.

Well, being old does not automatically mean better. Peak human physical performance typically happens, with some exceptions (Justin Gatlin, if we ignore the use of enhancement drugs) in younger years; see Usain Bolt's fastest time achieved when he was young (23 years, in 2009). For mental tasks it is not so limited, but for physical peaks it is often in the younger years. For some software projects it also is the case that older age means more code, which in turn automatically mean smore bugs, all other things being equal. I am not necessarily questioning as to whether emacs has more bugs; my point is that the comparison/analogy does not work as means of quality assessment.

The evidence of younger code being better than old one doesn’t pass the smell test, and it’s hard to prove in a nascent field of technology where the oldest piece of software in continuous use has barely reached middle age.

You just cannot compare software robustness to human lifespan. Does software need 3 years at the bare minimum to be self-sufficient? Does it become argumentative and crashes a lot after 13-14 years?

It's as wrong to anthroporphize Emacs as it is Larry Ellison.

If you look at the output of mathematicians and their biggest discoveries it suggests that it is similarly limited for mental tasks.