Personally I use the Microsoft Sculpt keyboard [0], and holding Ctrl down is as easy or easier than caps lock, particularly for Emacs C-x or C-c, where I can use my right pinky on C-. Also true for Ctrl+z, a pretty common combination in most modern UIs.

It's true that Esc is nowhere near as easy to reach, so if I used vim I'm sure I'd like to switch them (alt/meta is also easy to reach for me, so I never felt the need to use Esc for Meta in Emacs; and having two Alt keys anyway makes it better).

[0] https://img-prod-cms-rt-microsoft-com.akamaized.net/cms/api/... (using just this picture of the layout so this doesn't come off as some advertisement)