What I CAN NOT do, however, is move the 'ESC' key (or any, really) all the way to the left. There's always a 'Touch ID'-size spacer on the left of the Touch Bar.
That's correct. I am currently considering upgrading from my 13" 2013 Macbook Air to a 15" 2019 Macbook Pro (I want it for the IPS/bigger display) and I noticed this while I was testing it at Bestbuy.
Personally, if I make the purchase, I will probably just remap the Caps Lock key to ESC - assuming I can remove ESC from the Touch Bar.
The one thing I didn't care for is that the Touch Bar display can time out. I would personally prefer that it stay on - or at least have the option of it staying on.
Did a quick test, seems like it times out after 2min of system idle time, unrelated to display timeout (caffeinate -d doesn't prevent it) or actual idle system state (caffeinated -I doesn't either), and even on AC power (to prevent OLED burn in?)
The timeout implementation could definitely be improved. In 6 months I've hat that computer I've never had it be a problem or even found it annoying in any way though.