Thanks everyone. Contrary to some replies here, I have done hours of reading on all these keyboards, and my question was more about actually weighing them one against another and perhaps finding some quirks (like incompatible keys that I've overlooked, or controller problems, or whatever). Many of the reviews are months or even years old--things could have come up since then. I've looked on Reddit, DTH, OCN, GH, and other places and read most of the available reviews.
Thing is, there's no clear consensus on many of these keyboards. Some claim that a keyboard is "cheap", and then defend it saying that it's actually sturdy enough and works well. Noppoo keyboards are liked on one hand and then I saw mentions of issues. Same with Vortex. Etc. So it's really not easy to say--ambiguous, that is. If Filco Majestouch 2 TKL (?) and CM QFR are made by the same OEM, they should technically be just about the same, right? As far as I can tell anyway, beyond minor details. And then still there will be people saying that Filco is miles ahead of any keyboard. So you see, there are subjective opinions, among some "facts", and many of these keyboards don't really have that many reviews and opinions available.
And finally, I said "compact" because I didn't unify these all as "TKL", since technically they are missing a numpad, which is not the 10 keys. Yet some keyboards are called TKL when missing a numpad (like Filco and Ducky), and some are called TKL when missing the page up/ page dn / direction key clusters (CM keyboards). So "compact" was a generalization w.r.t. full sized keyboards. The tiny ones I'd call "ultra-compact"
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I'm mostly settled on picking between these 3, based on prices, quality, and aesthetics:
* Ducky Shine II TKL with MX Browns if LED colors I want appear in stock
* CM QFR with MX Browns (if any ever come back in stock... for being great on a budget)
* Filco Majestouch 2 TKL in metallic pink... with MX Black... which i'll have to switch to MX Browns eventually, probably.
P.S.: Yeah, FC700R is a nice keyboard, but is too expensive in my opinion at $155 shipped vs other keyboards I've listed.