I guess that it comes down to I have never liked the function keys because they pull my hands off of the home keys, and I never could accurately hit the F keys

I guess that it comes down to I have never liked the function keys because they pull my hands off of the home keys, and I never could accurately hit the F keys without looking for them. Long ago, when I was using apps that made heavy use of the function keys, I mapped ctrl-alt plus a number for to the function keys. I use to love the Happy Hacker Keyboards for have this built in.