if there was even a way to just have the f-keys on all the time by default, that would have helped. Last I looked, that was not an option - you needed to hold down the fn key (or control?)
The older macs, you could have f-key 'default' with the other options activated by holding the FN key, or reverse it, so that the brightness/etc were default, and f-keys activated by holding down the FN key.
There is no option to just have f-keys defaulted, with other touchbar stuff activated by FN key. For people who simply want standard f-keys as default all the time (like you could have in the previous macs), there is no option right now.