What are you talking about? Using reverse-r search in vi mode requires a single line config, no hacks involved.

    bindkey -v '^R' history-incremental-search-backward

I'd say that if you want vim-like bindings, zsh is a much better option. It provides Vim's text objects, surround.vim bindings, and visual selection which bash does not. Also unlike bash, you're free to create your own keybinding if none of the builtin ones suffice. I did exactly that to get an increment/decrement operator that behaves exactly like Vim's ^a/^x.

It's like the zsh folks said, "I like those vim guys".