I find that vim is unusable without a good rc file (which in my case is provided with the distro (ArchLinux∞).

Here∞'s my .vim folder.

I've put quite some energy in documenting the files, so I won't repeat the effort here. Note the (*) means I found the setting particularly useful, or hard to find. You can do a simple grep on the star if you lack the patience to look through all the files.

Salient Features

• Very modular design. This might be a bit irritating if you want to see what's happening at once, but I find it a lot more convenient to maintain (from experience with my bashrc setup).
• Convenience functions
• Switch painlessly between open buffers
• A good auto-complete menu
• Clean UI setup
• Remove beeps and visual bells
• Keep 10 lines "lookahead" for scope
• Neat cscope key-bindings
• Good "shortcut" key-bindings for common tasks

Awesome plugins

• gnupg.vim - Seemlessly create/edit GPG encrpyted files
• manpageviewer - Pretty manpages (Alias this in you bashrc:
• alias vim -c ":RMan <cmd>"
• snippetsEmu - Really well done snippet expansion
• minibufexpl - Makes editing multiple files fun
• matchit.vim - Matches HTML tags

Other related tips

• Swap your "Escape" And "Caps Lock" key, to save your pinky some considerable pain. Check VimTip 1083∞ or, click a nice checkbox in GNOME's Keyboard menu.
  It's really worth the relearning effort.
  
• Use Ctrl-] ant Ctrl-t to code-surf
• Use 'gf' to jump to the file under cursor
• Use Ctrl-R <register name> to insert a register while in insert mode.