which keycap do you prefer?
Assuming you meant comparing like to like (deep dish to deep dish), I'd say I prefer the Kinesis. However, I've had my fingers on them for years now, so I'm not exactly coming into this unbiased. If you had never used either, I'd imagine the decision would be a toss up as they're really not that different. The picture is rather deceiving, and I should have mentioned that the Kinesis versions have the bottom part of the key (the skirt so to speak) extending beyond the end of the stem, thus making them taller when laid on a table like that. The real difference when on the keyboard is more like splitting the difference between the two that you see when on the table. Just by eyeballing it, I'd say it's about a millimeter or less when on the board. Well within the realm of modding if it was something you wanted to change.
I wonder if you can sandblast them a little or something to give a rougher feel?
I don't think you'd want to make them rougher. The whole point is to have keys that feel different by touch. The texture difference in this case is advantageous, not detrimental. Sure they look slightly different, but even the color itself is a bit different, so you'll never have a perfect match with this batch no matter what you do. If anything though, it highlights the benefit of going to a completely different color for them. With a different color, you don't have to deal with minor shade differences that occur from batch to batch.
All that said, I'm kind of curious as to who is supplying Kinesis with their version of the deep dish. It's obviously not SP, unless SP has yet another key type hidden somewhere.
