Oops, answered to the wrong comment, reposting it here: One reason to prefer specific keys is accessibility for those with fine-motor issues is one. I Detailed

Oops, answered to the wrong comment, reposting it here: One reason to prefer specific keys is accessibility for those with fine-motor issues is one. I Detailed a bit in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29229583 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29229583. It is probably not the reason why it was designed this way but it's a nice corollary effect. Another is that those characters are used often. Way more than some other letters such as x, y, z, k and w, and using a compose key so often would be a pain.