I agree, there are several good starting points. But I think it's more important what the OP said about his understanding of it. I think this is a lot more important - WHY do you use plugins, HOW they help you, WHAT can they do. Like, autoimport like vscode does? Autohighlight problems? Check. Check. Autofix linting issues? Check. Find files? Check. Search the project? Check. There's a lot of things that can make your experience way better. Look up some videos. E.g. this one (if you can ignore some twitch memes, I found them mostly fun or tolerable).

Also, when you give up on vim, come back again. It's something that can take many iterations to really "get". Even if things don't work out, try again in a few years.

Also, as an alternative to VSCode, try some native editor. I personally used sublime - for weak machines, it's way better on resources then VSCode and it's electron baggage.