[ninjakeyboard]

I use colemak - It's incremental to qwerty and is much easier to learn. As such, I'd argue it's better for developers as cut copy paste shortcuts and most punctuation are unchanged. Ubuntu and OSX both come with Colemak now (minus the caps lock to backspace). IMO it's a much more comfortable layout to use without being too terrible to learn. If you want to learn it's because you're interested. I type on crazy blank keyboards etc now - it's pretty gangster but if you're asking here I'd say you shouldn't bother. If you're driven to learn on your own beyond all logic and reason, then I'd personally recommend colemak. The only area that's tough is pairing with other devs but I can type fine on a qwerty as long as I have visual cues (can see the layout of the keyboard.) I can touchtype on qwerty just fine and fast but I'll make a lot of errors without the constant visual reminder of the keyboard infront of me.

My speed dropped from 115wpm to probably 40 - I just checked and it's back up to 80-90 wpm after about 4 years but my hands hurt a lot less because of the reduction in speed.

I'd say you'd get bigger bang for your buck switching to a kinesis advantage but if you THRIVE ON LEARNING than nobody will stop you from picking up a new layout. The keyboard is our fork and spoon. It is the tool of our daily life. Doesn't that make it worth some time, effort and money learning to use better?