> Particularly with the caps-lock key I don't see why it takes up so much real estate.

History, removing it outright would likely have caused more consternation than the escape key change.

Blame this one on defaults all you want, but keyboards actually have defined layouts for keys, the touchbar is probably the best way of easing into changing that. But you can't boil the ocean and all that.

> On the other hand, I do wonder what went into designing local keyboard variants. Many are quite hostile towards common programming characters, to the point where I actually use a US keyboard, despite it missing 3 letters from my native language's alphabet!

Also history, in the English case, the keyboard variants were designed will before computers and programming languages. Starting in 1870 for most typewriters in English, and moving from there. I highly doubt any design went into any local variants and computer programming simplicity.

> Defaults are a very powerful thing.

So true. That's why companies make so many user-hostile settings as opt-out.