[seandougall]

It also has a physical Escape key, which seemed to be by far the most common complaint about the Touch Bar. Physical F keys are quite a niche desire.

[sg47]

I don't think it's a desire for physical F keys. It's a desire to not accidentally increase/decrease volume (in my case), a thousand times a day. The function keys are located (I switched to a 2016 Macbook Air recently due to the keyboard issue) well above the number keys on the Macbook Air that I never accidentally press a F key.

[Razengan]

System Preferences » Keyboard » Customize Control Strip

Change the buttons to a slider.

I personally never use F# keys so I set the Control Strip to show only on Fn.