http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/9/2/12769094/len...
It seems very likely to me that apple is moving this direction. They continue to pour resources into "taptic" feedback, to make flat fixed surfaces feel like buttons, and at the same time are decreasing the travel of their physical keyboards. They're definitely converging on a full touchscreen keyboard.
Dell has been selling a beautiful developer Linux laptop for a while, http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/xps-13-linux
There was one (not redrawable, but who looks at the keys anyway), but Apple bought it and killed it: http://ergocanada.com/products/keyboards/fingerworks_lp.html
I had one. It was not good for typing.
It's funny, but they're really just closing the loop on that acquisition by making a programmable keyboard.
By the way, a friend of mine had the Fingerworks (I use a Kinesis Advantage) and in the winter it would always go wonky because of static. He wound up having the company buy a humidifier... for his keyboard. I thought it was a neat idea (especially switching between typing and mousing by just sliding around) but I found the lack of feedback jarring and didn't fall in love with it.
If someone made an e-paper optimus style keyboard, i would definitely give that a try.
Little animations are neat. they pop. i really like them. for about a day. Then they're just annoying.
Something to be approached with caution. There may be an appropriate programming metaphor for the opportunities and risk, somewhere between operator overloading and self-modifying code.
I'll reserve judgement on the new TouchBar, since I haven't had a chance to play with one. I'll say this, though, what they've done is dipped their toe into the fully programmable keyboard space: http://www.geeknaut.com/cool-computer-keyboards-2219350.html
This could be a stepping stone to a fully redrawable keyboard. Not saying I want such a thing, but it's interesting. imagine the entire keyboard surface being the TouchBar? It would suck (I think) for typing, but it would certainly differentiate itself from the iPad, and would start making for custom controls that augment the display.
In some cases I could see this as a better experience than just a pure touchscreen (though it would probably be very niche).
Anyway, even with all of the negatives you mentioned, it's still going to be the best Unix laptop out there. My dream is that HP or Dell find a backbone, and starts pitching supporting and building a perfect Linux (pick any distro really) laptop to devs, or maybe Google makes ChromeOS, that perfect OS. Until then...