The Dactyl/Manuform keyboard is a shining totem of one of the deeper rabbit holes out there.

I know; I made it back out alive. My aspirational keyboard is a GergoPlex. I own other mechanical keyboards, such as a Planck EZ and an ErgoDox EZ. My actual daily driver is a Leopold FC660C with Topre Silent 45g rubber dome switches, modified with a Hasu FC660C Controller which can be programmed using QMK (or TMK) firmware. My layout is no longer taking most of my time. I use "one finger each hand" chording and "tap/hold" keys to access many custom layers for controlling my computer and editing in VSCode. My fingers rarely move more than one keycap off home row; my thumbs don't get much work.

When I'm evaluating a new cookbook I compare recipes I know cold. For comparison, "old school" shaving is another rabbit hole that I survived. What habit stayed with me? A brush and Mitchell´s Wool Fat Shaving Soap. If this has the ring of truth for you, you might draw my same conclusions about mechanical keyboards.

Years ago I owned three Kinesis Advantage keyboards. In a way, I loved them. I got rid of them because of too many systematic issues (stuck modifier keys, for example) one could trace to primitive USB hardware they could't afford to redesign. Their new internals might be better.

Every so often I'd try a mechanical keyboard to see what I was missing. I wouldn't spend enough, or get wrist rests to adjust to the higher keycaps. Only the better keyboards and switches are worth the trouble; I got hooked once I finally spent enough.

Our species wants to meld with machines. Many of us wish we could immerse our hands in nutrients and grow physical connections to our machines. I've met computer scientists working on brain implants; they talk about Alzheimer’s to get grants but their eyes are clearly on the horizon. The mind urge to do this instead in software and custom hardware is irrepressible. One needs to appreciate this to understand the levels of obsession in the keyboard rabbit hole. It's a realm where we all can be Thomas Edison.

Your results may vary, but many people conclude that the feel of Topre rubber dome switches is vastly superior to any of the hundreds of mechanical switches now available. This is an obsession killer. Why? You can't buy Topre switches separately. No one makes replacement keycaps, and the adaptors for standard keycaps impair the keyboard feel. The stock keycaps are fine but dull-looking, but what touch typist ever looks at their keyboard? Still, the majority of keyboard forum posts proudly show off custom keycaps. If one were to cannabilize Topre keycaps from an existing keyboard, the printed circuit boards are much harder to design. So one can't experiment with novel designs, such as the Dactyl/Manuform.

This leaves customizing the layout, which the Hasu FC660C Controller makes possible. Getting out of that rabbit is a separate problem, for which I don't have good advice. I had been fighting a basic urge to site my consciousness in my hands, a defining identity for our species. I wanted to be outside woodworking, rather than inside programming. Customizing my keyboard was a trick, to get my nose back in the kibble bowl. One day, I was satisfied with my layout, and I moved on. Now, I'm struggling with the urge to write a new programming language, rather than just coding the project I want to finish. I don't have hand issues requiring a more radical ergonomic design, but that may be partly that I don't move my fingers far off home row, even for modifier keys.