All the four freedoms need to be usable for something to be useful. If you can't upload a new copy, then being able to modify it is pointless I think.
Then what did RMS use to write emacs and gcc?
It is called a `needed evil'. When RMS wrote emacs and GCC, NO free software operating system existed. It was impossible to _not_ use non-free software. Today it is possible to use 100% software. So there is no reason to use non-free software at all.
Just because he now has free versions of his tools doesn't mean other users yet have free versions of their tools; or tool-sets.
They have the tools to write free versions.
You are resorting to straw man arguments.