I’ve always been a “remap capslock to escape” kind of guy (vim), so I didn’t mind much. Access to the brightness (screen and keyboard) and volume slider was neat but superfluous with the OG fn keys. Context-driven controls were probably the best thing about the touch bar, and I don’t think it got enough love to make that stick.
Adding to the list of grievances, the functionality and the options it presented differed from app to app. I understand that the function keys also change their function app to app, but the visual noise the Touch Bar (wow - the word even gets autocorrected to have the right capitalization!) added as you switched between apps was too distracting.