> Leopold FC980C keyboard (w/ Topre 45g switches btw), ... Did it really increase my typing speed to any appreciable degree though? Maybe a teensy little bit, but overall, I don't really think so.

Why would you expect it to it has the same dumb old unergonomic layout?

Re textexpanders: good advice, though one of the issues is the lack of good hints helping you seamlessly remember/pick which abbreviation you need to insert some text