I also agree in theory, but Ben McCormick's ~/.vimrc is tiny and is easy to understand for newbies, so I'm OK with it.
But yes, adopting the rule that you should never put anything in your ~/.vimrc that you don't understand from building it up over time and usage is a good one.
I definitely get how looking at someone else's vimrc could be considered interesting but someone else's config is an expression of their own circumstances, that are very likely to be different from yours. Yes, picking up something that makes sense for you and that you understand _can_ be a win, but a) it doesn't replace actual learning, and b) using someone else's vimrc wholesale is not. All you get is a damn black box that you don't understand better than Vim itself… and yet more commands to learn. That's a losing strategy.
As for Ben McCormick's vimrc…
- line 18 is useless and its comment is misleading
- line 30 is a matter of taste so it has nothing to do in that context
- the comment for line 33 is wrong and shows how much the author cares about "new vim users" and how much he knows about the subject
Building one's vimrc from scratch is an integral part of the learning so shortcuts are to be avoided.
