>Phyisical keys are great but 12 buttons labelled F1 to F12 with different functions depending on the program also isn't he pinnacle of UX
x1000. Function keys have almost always been useless to me. Once in a while I will remember what one is mapped to and use it, but for the most part they go unused.
They used to make cardboard guides that could sit on top of the older ibm keyboards when most of the world used one... I don’t know that you can replace the feel but some haptic taps or something might improve the touch bar. I generally like it bur on it and my older MBPs I pretty much used escape and volume and screen brightness settings and otherwise never used that row. Since laptops, the f-keys simply aren’t what they used to be, it’s not unusual for them to be overloaded or even require a shift like key to be pressed for f-key behavior.
I can see this in a small number of situations, but how many developers use the laptop's screen and keyboard for coding?
Pretty much everyone I know and every workplace I've seen has proper monitors and keyboards for everyone (developers included). A laptop has terrible ergonomics. That makes the touchbar a bit pointless, except when working on a train or plane, or at a meeting or conference.