I had a preonic and felt this way too. Columnar staggered seems to be the most friendly layout, and a split board so that you hands aren't shoved together. My

I had a preonic and felt this way too. Columnar staggered seems to be the most friendly layout, and a split board so that you hands aren't shoved together. My setup is a split 40% keyboard with a columnar staggered layout (corne), I've got layers for a numpad and mouse emulation keys, and my window manager is i3 and firefox has the tridactyl extension. I very very rarely have to touch a mouse, for the odd times I use it the mouse emulation in QMK is usually enough. I find this is the most comfortable typing experience for me. But yeah, basically don't discount the benefits of 40% boards because you tried an ortholinear board, I found them uncomfortable too.