I was right there with you until my final attempt which sealed the deal and helped me figure out why I struggled with the first few tries. The big clincher was

I was right there with you until my final attempt which sealed the deal and helped me figure out why I struggled with the first few tries. The big clincher was the switches. So many mech nerds pine over the clicky bs. NO. THANK. YOU. The magical solution for me is using Cherry Speed Silver RGB switches. There are basically hair trigger switches, no clicking, none of that crap. They respond like a low profile laptop keyboard or whatever, basically, near instant activation. The rest of the travel is just there to buffer your effort. You can literally lightly touch to type which is actually my normal typing style. So why bother? I game. And I want a reliable sturdy, FIXABLE keyboard for that. Also, it looks cool and is highly customizable. I use it across 3 computers and it's nice to have my mapping swaps just built in, no worrying about mapping that in software, etc. (Rest of the specifics for the nerds: iGK64 board, wood case, with oem profile abs caps for the translucent goodness, though, cherry profile pbt caps feel real nice too.)