emacs-writer VS goto-chg

I meant to do that—thanks for the reminder. I don't particularly like the default welcome screen—I think I might eventually make something like what I've got with Amethyst.

Here's a setup I made for my non-technical wife: https://github.com/ashton314/amethyst

Inspired in pat by this article, I put together a quasi-Emacs distribution for my wife who is a writer. It turns on several of the suggestions in this article by default, such as CUA mode, etc.

https://github.com/ashton314/amethyst

Maybe the amethyst starter kit might be helpful? Also the system crafters videos and Mike Zamansky's videos

See my code on GitHub.

Regarding 3. Ability to scroll without bringing point along.

You can duplicate the buffer side by side with the original buffer and in each window point will be at a different location. This is fundamentally just better than such a peek mode as you can see two different segments of the same file side by side. If you do want to peek and return you can use goto-last-change to return to where you were last typing. In evil this is bound to g; no idea about a binding in plain emacs but nothing is stopping you from using and binding such a thing.

https://github.com/emacs-evil/goto-chg/blob/master/goto-chg....

You can also use marks in evil m[a-z] to set a mark '[a-z] to go back to that mark. so for example ma 'a to go back.

Consider the alternative. Since you don't want scroll to always leave point behind you must have a special binding to enter peek mode and thereafter you scroll as normal. Then one of two things has to happen. Either you decide point really ought to be here now and you have to hit a key combo bound to end-peek-at-current-location or another key bound to end-peek-return-to-point. I would suggest escape/q for end-peek-return-to-point and return for end-peek-at-current-location. You can also do end-peek-return-to-point if you just start typing obviating the need for an additional binding but I think this would be a little weird because there would be a slight hitch while it pops back to prior location.

The biggest defect with this compared to goto-last-change is that it is ironically given the alternative being part of evil modal. You have to decide to use peek ahead of time and then you have to remember you are in that mode and do something to get out of it should you decide you actually want to do something different like exit with point at the new location. With goto-last-change you don't have to decide ahead of time you can simply decide to go back after the fact without needing to attend to any state in between.

Multiple windows on the same file and marks require attention ahead of time but are far more general and powerful than peeking.

Sometimes what people want and what is most useful are different things. Fortunately Emacs is simple enough and powerful enough for you to implement peek mode trivially if you like but I don't think it would be worth using compared to the alternatives. Logically you could implement it by remembering present point and making local bindings to go back to prior point example esc to go back enter to remove local binding to esc.