Or, you know, use the keyboard layout that everyone has become accustomed to, instead of coming up with a special-snowflake input device that is a gimmick.

These new Macbooks are the Wii U's of laptops.

No right now in the top left corner of my touchbar is an (X) key, the esc key is to the right of it.

My understanding is that even though by default there is some (inexplicable) space left of the escape key on the touchbar, that space still functions as the escape key.

In my case I actually had a completely separate, non-esc button to the left of esc. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/InvBvqa.png

I'm not sure exactly when it happens, but I think it happens when you have some background context open on the touchbar (like some app's music controls). The X dismisses the bar you have open and then you get esc back. Often there's no esc at all and just the X.

That sounds terrible. Dismiss the window before you can escape??