I can live without split. I would consider any keyboard with a large spacebar less than ideal, though. I like my thumbs to be able to reach 2-3 keys each. Tha

I can live without split. I would consider any keyboard with a large spacebar less than ideal, though. I like my thumbs to be able to reach 2-3 keys each. That way, as well as space, my thumbs can be used for tab, escape, backspace, and return. -- I find that having these keys accessible to the thumbs (& not having to move my hands or reach with my pinky fingers) to hit these keys such an obvious win for efficiency. Using home-row mods is another technique that allows for reducing reliance on the pinky fingers. By putting Alt, Gui, Ctrl, Shift underneath asdf (and ;lkj), these keys are accessible without having to move my hands. As others said, maybe you're overestimating the amount of progress that you can make in a short time. I'd estimate that a higher proportion of 'people who are enthusiastic about these small keyboards' are programmers (& thus need to be able to access all sorts of symbols) compared to the general computing population.