Do not fear for there is an equivalent to ESC! The glorious Ctrl+[

you can remap vim to use whatever you'd like instead of esc, or just ditch your caps lock and make that your new escape key.

I know some vim users swear by remapping esc to jh or similar so you don't even have to leave the home row

Just remap it to "E".

Just swap Esc and Caps Lock. More comfy. Plus most people don't even use Caps Lock anyway.

In the ancient times, the escape button wasn't at the upper left corner, but to the left of Q (ADM-A3). Vi (and by extension Vim) just haven't adapted to a different keyboard layout.