On a laptop, that "look down" means looking at the bottom pixels of the screen.

The looking was never the problem, IMHO, the problem was execution and utility. It was actually distracting when there was adaptive completion results continually flashing. And the rest of the buttons were never great.

If every single dialog box flashed the buttons, that would be a win as it is easier and faster to tap the touchbar than it is to navigate the cursor and then click. But this obvious use case never really materialized.

And if, like most "professional" users, the laptop is operated via an external keyboard, the muscle memory never develops.