The curve is indeed steep! I had to force myself to only use the ortho keeb for a week or two (resist using the laptop keyboard). Since then I'm sailing ortho only, so much that I sold some very expensive staggered keyboard, because I know I will not use staggered anymore if I can.

The benefits were obvious immediately, even while not touch-typing yet. Every key is assigned to a finger without ambiguity. Except for some shortcut combinations, but even then it feels clear.

You use your pinky more which I think is good (I also play the guitar).

The number one advantage is that my hand is never lost anymore. With staggered, every other word or command makes my hand "float" somewhere away from the "home row/keys", with a subsequent mistype or look-down. This does not happen anymore.

See my reply to it above. I feel this is highly individually dependent and you have to try it yourself.