Like you, I have been intrigued by compact boards. I started by moving from a full-size IBM Model M to an IBM SSK. Then I got curious about other TKL boards that were more compact than the SSK, so I have looked at a Filco MJ2 TKL with Cherry mx blue switches and a CM QFS with Cherry mx green switches.
I then jumped to a 60% form factor, looking at boards like the Poker II whose arrow keys are in the Fn layer, and the Tex Beetle, which has dedicated arrow keys. The Poker II has a standard layout, which makes touch typing and replacing keycaps easy, but I found that I needed the arrow keys quite frequently, and I did not like having to use Fn+WASD. Although the Beetle has dedicated arrow keys within a 60% form factor, it does this by shrinking the right-shift key from 2.75x to 1.00x, which is far too small for me. The Beetle also has a non-standard staggering in the z-row, which together with the small right-shift key interfered with my typing.
There are 75% boards such as the Keycool 84, but I did not like the build quality or appearance of such boards.
Finally, I tried two 60%-plus boards, the Leopold FC660M with Cherry mx blue switches and the Leopold FC660C with 45-gram Topre switches. This was the solution I was looking for. These Leopolds have dedicated arrow keys along with an Insert and Delete key, but they have maintained a standard layout in the main typing area with the exception of reducing the right-shift to 2.25x, which is the same size as the left-shift and quite acceptable for touch typing. The layouts of the two Leopolds are the same, but I find the Topre switch version to be light years ahead of the Cherry switch version for typing. In fact, the FC660C is now my second-favorite board, next to my IBM SSK. It might even jump to first place if Leopold would make high quality dye-sub Topre keycaps available for it.
