The lower tier model does have an escape key. For Touch Bar machines, there will be an escape "key" on the touch bar, which I don't think will be much more inconvenient than reaching for the actual escape key. Lots of Vim users map that key to something else anyway — it's not well placed for such a commonly used key.

It's easy to remap CapsLock (which is in a more convenient position than original Esc key IMO) or something to act as escape.

I think i would be bothered by missing F keys more…

Vim ... reimagined with a touch bar interface. Just wait.

Ctrl-[ is a better Escape, though. (and is enabled by default in Vim, in your terminal, and Vim modes in other editors.) You don't even have to lift your fingers off the home row.

I use that a lot but I like both depending on what I'm doing. It also kills command+F3 which I use constantly

However it's a console escape key, which means it doesn't work in graphical applications (VS Code, Atom, IDEs, ...). You might also want vim mode there. Or want easy access to escape for other reasons (intellisense can sometimes be annoying, ...).

Sublime's Vim mode (https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/vintage.html)

> Vintage supports these ctrl key bindings:

  * Ctrl+[: Escape
  [... others]

Atom-vim-mode-plus has it by default. https://github.com/t9md/atom-vim-mode-plus/blob/master/keyma...

VSCodeVim doesn't have it by default, but it's an option. https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim#usectrlkeys

If you need Escape, there is always a way to get it. Whether you bind the touch bar top-left to Escape (which you should in an editing application basically and nowhere else) or you use the widely-held Ctrl-[ default bind from your favorite Vim mode. Plus, the agency of being able to dynamically rebind the rest of the keys or use it as a separate HUD could be seen as useful.

I agree the MacBookPro 2016 is bad. But this is a stupid reason to think it's bad.