With the quoted text beginning "All of the greatest engineers in the world use Emacs," I wouldn't take it at face value either. Does he know all of the world's greatest engineers? Is it the same list of world's greatest engineers that you or I have?
Once learned, a powerful editor like EMACS or vi will make you more efficient, or at least more efficient if you happen to be caught without your favorite IDE.
It's the "once learned" part that's the killer. It's a lot of work and practice to use these tools productively, and it's very tough at the beginning.
