Something like Sublime Text 2 is a good compromise - the best of both worlds.

Some power behind it, not unsimilar to Vim/Emacs. Some beauty behind it, not unsimilar to other commercial text editors / IDEs.

The truth is the editor you use doesn't matter. People who know Vim swear up and down on it, but that's because they are good with it, they have been using it for over 5 years - of course they're proficient with the editor.

Other people are fast with editors like Sublime Text 2.

Others with an IDE like Visual Studio or RADRails.

Tools don't matter, your workflow does. Personally, I'd teach those kids how to use Sublime Text 2.