So, still waiting on next round of firmware, which may be non-trivial.
Somewhat sad to say the 'need to unplug and re-plug' issue is still there on latest firmware, although it's much less. This only occurs when waking system from deep sleep/hibernation mode, i.e. when I quit for the night and then wake it in the am to check quick 'emergency' emails before unplugging from display and power and throwing the MBP into the bag to head to work.
I picked up a second MB, primarily because, well - brown keys suck entirely as much as I thought they would, possibly even more. Picked up one w/Blues, mainly because they don't offer Greens. Why? Well, my Matias Ergo Pro, to me, is a
great design, but piss-poor quality/QC - after a month I got doubling on the F and sometimes Y and N keys (so - on both halves). So basically, I need a minimum of 2x keyboards which are the same and meet my needs, plus potentially a third for travel.
In an ideal world, someone would create a split, tentable, all-layer-programmable KB that is
NOT a 60% KB, more like a TKL or even a 60% + arrow keys and ESC keys, then all would be well in the world. The Mattias Ergo Pro or VE.A are the closest I've seen, although they have extra keys I don't really 'need', and are either unreliable (Matias) or unobtanium and $$$ to start with (VE.A- plus don't really care about the disco LEDs, better to have backlit keys than a rainbow along the bottom for actual
work). Note the Matias wriest-wrests are actually also quite nice in reality assuming proper desk/chair/ergo setup - I like it more than I thought I would.
Anyways, I added .2mm o-rings under the MX-blues and it now feels...almost acceptable. This would mean 'very good' likely for most, but the Blues remain wimpy things vs the Greens, which remain somewhat off vs IBM/Unicomp bucking springs, but I think I can get used to them overall.
RE: UHK. I have one pre-ordered. It's a big enough price jump and still doesn't give me dedicated arrow keys or ESC separated vs ~ and ` keys, which is my main beef on 60% keyboards (along with WHERE they position the FN-arrow keys no matter how many years of VI use I have in prior years..). The UHK is interesting to me mainly due to the add-on modules and hoping ALL layers are programmable so I can sort the ESC/~/` and arrows keys in a solid way, while the add-on modules may let me lose the mouse for gross mouse movements and perhaps map some of the added keys usefully. Of course, we still need to see it actually get released...
How would I 'improve' the Barocco?
Allow reprogramming of arrow key position or better, add separate ESC and arrow keys. I don't need more but those keys are highly relevant and often used by me daily/hourly/...
Allow fully programmable for all layers including the base layer.
Add tenting options.
Fix the wake from sleep/dead KB issue
That's close to it.
The rest are more or less relatively minor and wouldn't impact my decision to purchase or not in a hugely meaningful way - Sure, backlit keys would be nice. Option for MX Greens (or Topre?
) would both be awesome as well. Offer different colored keycaps. Allow 'master' to be plugged in to either left hand side (doesn't work) or right for cable convenience.