First, a question: what keycaps are you using on the Ergodox? If you use a sculpted profile like e.g. DCS (
not SA or DSA), I think you’ll have a much better experience. It can be an even better experience to mix and match keycaps from different profiles, e.g. putting extra-tall keycaps on the further 1u thumb keys.
Second, how do you have it arranged? I recommend tenting it at least 20° (my preference is more like 45°), as well as turning the two halves inward a bit. How’s the rest of your chair/desk setup? If you take a picture (or better, a video) showing yourself typing, people might be able to offer some advice.
But the Ergodox is certainly not perfect. I started a thread here about improving the thumb section
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=62848.0 and made some prototypes, e.g.:
* * *
My personal opinion is that the Maltron is the best “curved keywell” design, much better executed than the Kinesis (but also much more expensive to produce), but also that the concept of the curved keywell with differently angled switches is fundamentally flawed. (e.g. I think the project LuX linked, vvp’s thing,
the dactyl, etc. are all substantially misguided.)
My opinion is that you want to have fairly dramatic vertical separation between keys in different rows, but
not have the angle of the key axis change. I find pressing the top row keys, and especially keys in the top corners, very awkward on the Kinesis.
Keycaps alone are usually not aggressively sculpted enough to get quite the vertical step that I think is ideal, so I’d advocate having switches in further-away rows mounted higher, but not tilted differently than the home row keys. There can also be a significant advantage in having the middle-finger column lowered and the pinky finger columns raised compared to other columns of keys. This is hard to accomplish with a flat plate+pcb. Finally, carefully positioning and angling the thumb keys can make a big improvement compared to a flat design, though a design is still somewhat workable if you get the layout right (and the Ergodox does not in my opinion).
For me, the ideal would be to have a keyboard case/plate made out of a milled block of wood or metal, with different switches at different heights, hand-wired at the back. I’d then potentially use a uniform keycap shape to facilitate reordering the keycaps to support any arbitrary logical arrangement (or potentially still use sculpted caps, but with the milled plate/case taking the keycap shape into account). The ideal keycaps would be somewhat smaller than the standard ones, (a) so that they could be arranged in slightly differently angled columns without running into each-other at the near side, and (b) so the rows could be spaced a bit closer together. An aggressive column-oriented stagger helps reduce the minimum usable keytop size compared to standard row-staggered keyboards, but someone with very large hands (let’s say hands larger than 90% of men) might prefer the current keycap size though.