Ctrl+H : Replace
bar : Find what
baz : Replace with
Ctrl+Shift+H : Replace first match
<esc> : Exit replace mode
or Ctrl + I : Incremental Find (finds and selects finding)
bar : Find & select text
baz : Overwrite selection
or Ctrl+<Right>+<Right>+<Right>+<Right> : Reach the word bar
Ctrl+d : Select word under cursor
baz : Overwrite selection
or Ctrl+P : GoTo Anything
# : Goto word
bar : Goto word 'bar' & select it
baz : Overwrite selection
I agree that vim's vocabulary is very expressive and very powerfull. I switched to Sublime Text because tweaking vim to meet my needs was just too much effort, even for simple things. Couple this with even more effort to make it play nice with Greek (my native language), and the switch came naturally.
I'm only saying this because it's interesting that the same problem has been solved by very similar methods at almost the same time (SublimeText HQ being the first by a couple of months).