That is enough justification, especially when you're at a single user mode console on a ILO card when the machine won't boot and flames are coming out of everything. Vi is there for you and emacs SSH won't be saving you when the network is not up so you cant apt-get or yum emacs. It's also not the sort of time you want to start having to learn vi.
I know this because I've been there.
It's as important as it always was, much as pen and paper are.
