I'm also on the fence about upgrading. I am thinking of just buying a mac keyboard so I have an escape key. That key is very essential to my workflow. Do you think it's a good idea?
Mac OS support by default to map the Caps Lock key as an Escape key.
Back in the "old" days, nobody would have voluntarily admitted they used the regular Escape key implying their hand movement is anything less than optimal. Hell, Mac OS was praised for almost not making any use of the carpal tunnel inducing function keys.
Karabiner Elements is user for a more complex modifier [1]. I use Karabiner to remap Caps Lock to hyper (cmd+ctrl+option) or just esc when pressed alone.
Touchbar can be useful especially with apps like Pock to save some screen real estate. The only thing that they should do is to bring back ESC key and maybe allow for switching numbers row to F-keys with Fn. That would allow for rich media control and whatever you want on touchbar and still have proper, tactile functionality of keys.
Back in the "old" days, nobody would have voluntarily admitted they used the regular Escape key implying their hand movement is anything less than optimal. Hell, Mac OS was praised for almost not making any use of the carpal tunnel inducing function keys.
Then the touch bar was released ;-)