A couple things that really annoy me are the default vim settings where words get chopped in the middle and paragraphs don’t display correctly. I’m sure there is a reason for the defaults, but here is how you change this while in vim:

:set linebreak
:set display+=lastline

If you put this in .vimrc in your home directory, it will always be set this way (take off the :, of course). Another annoying thing is the bell. Here is how you turn off the visual bell inside vim:

:set vb