I also have Caps Lock mapped to Command (Ctrl). And since my biggest use of the Esc key is when using Vim, I simply press Caps Lock + [ ( Ctrl + [ ) to switch t

I also have Caps Lock mapped to Command (Ctrl). And since my biggest use of the Esc key is when using Vim, I simply press Caps Lock + [ ( Ctrl + [ ) to switch to Normal Mode. So only my right pinky leaves the home row. I have the MBP "Escape" (without the Touch Bar), but if I did have the Touch Bar this would avoid 90% of the issues involving not having a hardware Esc key for me.