I'd learned Dvorak years before trying these keyboards. (Eventually gave up, probably by not making the effort to switch the layout back from US). One minor be

I'd learned Dvorak years before trying these keyboards. (Eventually gave up, probably by not making the effort to switch the layout back from US). One minor benefit: the nice thing about external keyboards is the OS layout can be US layout, and you don't have to worry about switching the OS settings. IMO, being familiar with Dvorak means ortho is an easy transition, since your fingers will already follow a column-discipline. (Whereas, my QWERTY remain hunt & peck; I use ortho with Dvorak, qwerty with row-stagger). I'd say ortho almost universally goes with with "multiple thumb keys" (2-3 each). This helps a lot with "reduce pinky finger usage, increase thumb usage", since you can move the backspace, enter, escape, tab keys to within reach of the thumb, alongside space. -- Thumb keys also allow for layering, to reduce hand movement from home row. I think the advantages of asymmetric row-stagger are availability/cost, and its history as the typical keyboard layout. -- If you don't need to share your keyboard with anyone, and can afford a keyboard with straight columns, ortho is nice.