I thought that too, then I got one of the new MacBooks and used it for about a week. I stopped noticing that the escape key wasn’t a key somewhere between day 5 and 7. It’s very easy to hit, as you can trigger it by tapping anywhere on the edge of the touchbar (not just the graphical button), and thus I think it becomes very easy for your muscle memory to adjust.

I would still prefer a physical function row, but it’s not that big of a deal. And actually some of the controls on the touchbar are really nice, for example the volume and brightness controls for changing all your connected displays at once.