For several years I loved a Compaq rubber dome keyboard, the SK-2800 with media buttons. I went on a few forums and talked about how well I liked it, and especially the rubber media buttons. Some people who knew something about keyboards thought that I was saying that rubber domes were great, and I took some flak. Shortly thereafter I decided to re-discover what mechanical keyboards were like.
After hearing that the Model F XT was the best-feeling board, I bought one on ebay. This was before Soarer's converter, and the only readily-available option was the Hagstrom, at the time, an open circuit board like the Teensy. I build an outboard box for it that was about as large as a pack of cigarettes and translucent plastic.
After using it for a short while, I could not tolerate the layout and sold it on ebay, complete with the Hagstrom (and got a good price, too, eventually!). Ripster saw the listing and ridiculed my effort as "ghetto" and he was quite right. This was just about the time I got started here at Geekhack.
So those were the things that I was embarrassed about. I replaced the Model F XT with a Model M and paddled into the main stream.