(I am an artist and my Wacom drawing tablet has almost completely replaced a mouse for me, the only time I plug one in is when I want to play a game that requires me to move its view by pushing the mouse cursor against the screen's edge.)

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. As a mechanical keyboard user, "the tactical novelty" doesn't even register in the "pros" column. As a professional software developer I use mechanical keyboards because they are far easier to clean and maintain, and are actually repairable and don't become trash just because a key happens to crap out.

Mechanical keyboard users I've known all became obsessed with them and never stayed with the same model for long, rendering their longevity irrelevant.

The rest of time I greatly prefer the ergonomics of the old thinkpad keyboards w/ track-point, but the external ones are expensive and sucky, imo.

I also sometimes move my mouse to the left side of the keyboard so that I can have better, more symmetrical posture. I would really prefer to have a small external USB trackpoint that I could simply place beneath my spacebar, but sadly no one seems to sell this.

This person even hacked their own (https://github.com/feklee/usb-trackpoint), but I haven't found the time or motivation. I bet I'm not the only one who would pay a handsome margin -- business opportunity?

That UHK pointer module would solve my ergonomic problems better than mousing backwards, and might be worth the price by itself.

Potato, topato.

> Mechanical keyboard users I've known

It's your own personal anectode and all. If you see plenty of people using the same el cheapo keyboard until it breaks apart from all the encusted breadcrumbs and hair and dust and microecosystems, I don't see what's hard to understand about how people who spend more on keyboards also do the same.

It really helps with wrist issues. I also prefer a split keyboard.

Just like different guitars play differently, just like different shoes feel differently, different keyboards feel differently too.

If you are fine with a non-mechanical one, no need to defend yourself. Some people like clicky mechanical keyboards, some like linear ones, some want a heavy touch, some a light touch, some don't feel any difference at all, etc.

A good keyboard will last you at least a decade, multiply these hours by that and even 200$ would be nearly next to nothing given the time you use it. Do you really need it? Probably not (unless you use it for ergonomics). But if you can afford it, why not.

I will say the Kinesis Advantage2 people seem to be more or less permanently satisfied, though. So I am tempted.

Creating those wells is, apparently, a tough engineering challenge, which is why so few commercially available keyboards have them, but they are what makes it so comfortable and effective. I consider the flat split keyboards to be pointless.

Apple keyboards seem to have a different layout where the command key is lined up with the gap between X|C. Being a half key off took me a little getting used to.

I also gave the Kensinton Expert a try but I really disliked it. For one I think I just prefer thumb trackballs, but beyond that I found the build quality really shoddy for that price. In particular the scroll ring is wobbly and rattles quite a lot on my model, it feels very cheap and is unpleasant to use.