> Chording requires synchroised keystrokes, and chaining chords can be awkward and error prone.

Chording itself is not all that difficult if your keyboard is set up for it. I think you'd be shocked at what opens source firmware like ZMK and QMK can accomplish. It does require you to recalibrate your mind. You use the "shift" key all the time. Using layers is doing the same, except you can make that layer key whatever you want and wherever you want. This is not more error prone than moving your hands from home row to press a function key.

> It also puts unnecessary stress on your wrists, and not moving your hands for long periods of time in the name of efficiency is a sure fire way to end up with carpal tunnel syndrome.

It does not add any additional stress on your wrists beyond what normal typing does. No one is suggesting you keep your hands stationary, they're suggesting you keep your keys close enough to you that you don't naturally end up contorting your wrists like you do on a standard layout keyboard. All staggered, nonstandard or otherwise layouts are not ergonomic. They force your fingers and your wrists to contort heavily with use. Whether or not this ends up affecting you depends largely on genetics. There are people twice my age still typing on full sized keyboards and have been their entire life and their hands are perfectly fine. For me personally, using an alternative layout with yes, chorded keys, has made it possible for me to continue typing at all. Also, you're not giving your wrists a break by moving your hand over to the function keys or to the navigation cluster. You do that with actual breaks and stretching.

> The only computing task where I'm primarily typing is when I'm practicing typing. When I'm actively writing code, I'm primarily thinking, planning, and transcribing. When I'm reading code, I'm semantically navigating. When I'm taking notes, writing documentation or responding to communication, again I'm not primarily typing I'm composing. As someone who can touch type to a proficient degree, the improvements I would get from increasing my keystrokes are marginal at best. The real wins are using tools that reduce the mental overhead of those tasks, e.g. when composing an email having automated spell checks fix my most common typos, when writing markdown having a live side by side preview, and when editing code having tools with semantic knowledge so that I can navigate mt code structurally, not as text. Those things give me orders of magnitudes of productivity increases.

Your argument boils down to you don't think your keyboard matters, in which case you arguing for keeping your full sized standard layout keyboard with a navigation cluster, function row, and number pad is completely moot. This is not the first time I've heard this argument; it's almost always the same one and it's always from obstinate people who've never actually tried anything else, because they're overly confident in their own opinion that their keyboard, the instrument they primarily use to interact with their computer, cannot be improved upon. It's almost zealous.

If you are so certain that your keyboard plays such a minor role in your computing, then use something else. Use an on-screen keyboard that you have to click each key with a mouse, that is available on all major operating systems. It is, after all, such a minor and unimportant part of what you do on the computer, after all!