Eventually I turned into a "notepad programmer" meaning that I write it all by hand, and with only a smidgen of code completion. Before ST2, Notepad++ was my editor of choice. I've gotten to the point now where I'm faster without code completion than with. In fact, I've gone so far as to write and maintain my own code completion library in AutoHotkey that works universally, in whatever editor I'm in (even in a web form).
...but I believe every product should be able to provide it's basic, and expected, functions without a need for 3rd party plugins.
I think this just depends on where you're coming from. I'm sure there are people here using ST2 that will never write a line of HTML. A Python developer doesn't need an editor with HTML code completion. What you think should be the basic, expected functions are not what the next person expects. That's why we have plugins. So that everyone can tailor the editor to meet their basic and expected needs.
Anyway - I'm the kind of person that doesn't mind spending 8 hours configuring things to be EXACTLY like I want them (which I then have Dropbox automatically sync to all my computers, so I never have to do it again). Not everyone will be like me, so I get where you're coming from... but I wouldn't expect ST2 to get to that level of "done" that you're looking for. I may be completely wrong (I've only been around for a couple months now), but I expect that the author doesn't plan to add too many more "out of the box" features.
Oh - and about documentation - yeah, there could be more... but ST2 is still in development, still in beta/alpha/whatever... so until that beta tag is lifted, I doubt there will be too much official documentation.
By the way... don't try gVIM.
I got sucked into that rabbit hole and spent a week learning and tinkering with it. Hahah! That's an editor that is more powerful than anything I've ever used, but the learning curve is crazy - and way beyond me. Anyway... I've spent way too much time writing this. I need to actually go write code now. Hahah!
