CTRL-C is completely different.
Had it only been a week or two I suspect my muscle memory wouldn't've shifted though.
This is already far superior than just F1, F2, etc, which are far far more cryptic than a descriptive icon.
That's the thing, most apps already do use F keys for custom bindings, but you have to manually memorize them for each different app. Here, you at least get to see the correct icon in each program you're using.
And as a bonus, you get variable size buttons, sliding input, colors, and much more that just isn't possible with simple buttons.
I am reminded also of one time trying to write C code on an IBM AS/400, only to find that the keyboard did not have square bracket keys at all...
> ␛ is just keyboard syntactic sugar for control left square bracket
I absolutely agree that Control+x ↦ x&0x3F is an established convention, and it continually annoys me that Windows and Windows-aping software violates it.
I personally don't like the idea of losing some keys, keys are nice, my fingers can feel where they are at all times. But that said my fingers also know exactly where to go without the feedback of the keys. I do like the prospect of programming a custom touch bar for various programs, that seems kind of neat, but I would have also been fine with keeping my function keys (I mean custom bindings are what function keys are for in the first place, no?).
However this still does not help for a missing ESC in other applications (like IDEs where you sometimes want to close an annoying intellisense dialog).
(More seriously, as much as it bothers me to retrain my pinky, most uses of the escape key would be many times better if the lefthand side of the touch bar had a word for the function, like stop being full screen, cancel, leave menu, or whatever. The function would then be discoverable instead of secret lore.)