And then you go to use another machine with a full keyboard... Frustration. I agree: mapping keys is a simple and easy fix. But, it's frustrating if you switch between machines. I literally cannot type on my MBP from work after using my fantastic mechanical keyboard all day. Jarring is an understatement.

I want a full, physical keyboard. That's it. I won't buy another MacBook if Apple continues to forcefeed that pile of garbage as the only option. I said this in another comment a while ago: people who like Touchbar don't type. They're point and click users. People who type for a living despise it. I realize there are outliers but that's a pretty accurate characterization.

To be clear: what I've described is not a "fix" – it's an unalloyed improvement. I use this configuration uniformly across all keyboards: control and ESC on the home row FTW.

Also, take your angry generalizations about TouchBar users elsewhere. Aside from the ESC key loss I'm fine with the TouchBar, and know quite a few competent touch-typist developers who really like it as well. It is very divisive, but please leave off characterizing others' preferences according to your own frustration.

And I really do understand your frustration with the keyboards. They're just not great, and the reliability problems are a disaster. The only silver lining is that there's pretty reliable info that Apple is switching back to scissor mechanism keyboards for its laptops this year. Doesn't help the rest of us stuck with the "bad" years keyboards, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, Karabiner-Elements has that option and it's great. There is something satisfying about smashing that ESC button sometimes though in some contexts. :(