I think a lot of it depends on your familiarity. I have a 2016 rMB with the gen-1 butterfly keyboard, and it's not very good, but comparing my rMB, a Thinkpad keyboard, and my preferred desktop keyboard (Kinesis Advantage), the difference between the laptop keyboards is only marginal, and they're both much worse than my desktop keyboard.

Similar to how I see touchscreen keyboards - they're not very good for lengthy typing, but they allow for the optimal form factor for the device.