Seriously, why doesn't anyone copy DCS profile? Or something like Topre profile to MX stems.
When people copy Cherry profile, they also copy the thick walls and how they are inside. Some makers have made some improvements on the inside, for compatibility with Costar-style stabilisers and offset stems. (and there have been some mistakes as well)
Signature Plastics' DCS has thin walls and also no struts inside making them incompatible with O-rings (or silencing clips and similar).
They are actually a simplified version of an even older profile from SP's predecessor Comptec that had thicker walls. Those can be found in some vintage WYSE keyboards, but you can't tell which without pulling a key.
Some vintage keyboards from BTC have a very similar profile to DCS, but the sides are textured the same as the top and these do work with O-rings. There might be more vintage keyboards out there with similar keycaps that I have not seen yet.
My favourite Cherry keycap clones are from Leopold. Those have sharper edges and a grippier surface texture than original Cherry without being coarse like EnjoyPBT, as well as support for stepped centre-stemmed Caps Lock.
The only advantage I think DCS/Topre really has over Leopold's is the angle on the ZXCVF row.
However, on the
bottom row, people don't often like that sharp angle, so many people rotate the spacebar or even the Alt keys to avoid thumbing on the sharper edge.
I think an angle somewhere in-between that of Cherry and DCS/Topre would be better for the ZXCVF row, with the actual bottom row having a rounded profile such as what the Dell AT101W has.
However, if you have different profiles on the two bottom rows then the profile would be less useful for unusual layouts such as 40% variants and small ergo keyboards with many thumb-keys.
I don't think that anybody really
dislikes Cherry's bottom-row profile. It is an acceptable middle ground.
(and anyone who reverses a Cherry-profile Space Bar on a keyboard that doesn't have a negative angle is a moron ...
)
Tai Hao uses molds for the OEM profile, which is a bit taller than DCS. Production of DCS by Tai Hao will require new molds. Its investment is a matter of market demand, which by now is all OEM.
Indeed. Such keys would not necessarily be cheaper just because they would be made by Tai Hao.
Injection moulds are very expensive wherever you are, and the cost of investing in them would have to be covered by the volume sold and also yield a profit.
Signature Plastics could probably sell keycaps at more competitive prices if the order was very large and not a small customer such as an enthusiast running a group buy in a new colour scheme.