oh! i personally like helm-projectile for fuzzy file search (i have it bound to ctrl+p to fuzzy find files, because i am a heretic)
multiple-cursors is also just a package you can install to get those! though i like to change its bindings to be more sublime/vscode-style (because i am a heretic)
agree on vertico/orderless/consult "stack" - they are very nice packages that make Emacs immediately feel more "modern." bonus points for marginalia, corfu. also modern emacs (30) has tree-sitter support so you got that going for you :)