I am quiet tempted to buy one of the Matias boards, though I'm not entirely sure which... The keyboards don't have a lot of features, but I don't really require too many. Mainly I'm annoyed they've changed the standard layout, to remove the right Windows and Context keys, and replace them with a single (useless) Fn key (that only does Play/Next/Prev on Esc/F1/F2). But other than this, they seem pretty good. And I think I'll love the actual switches!
I just joined on here after my first mechanical keyboard purchase which happens to be a Matias Quiet Pro. With regards to your post above, it turns out Matias HAS been listening to the people out there who wanted a more vanilla layout without a Fn key. It's not 100% to your liking but there is now a right context key there, still no right Win key. Maybe you could use autohotkey or something else to remap that. The response I got from support was that they have not gotten around to updating all their marketing materials yet to reflect the change so most pages still show the media keys.
Here's a picture of the most current layout:
I bought mine from here:
https://jet.com/product/Matias-Quiet-Pro-Keyboard-for-PC-Black-USB-with-3-port-USB-20-hub/6d4a2f2b3e0a4c23b82109f728fa7658. That is an awesome place to purchase the board because first time customers get 15% off (coupon code 15NOW but you can probably find others on google) so you wind up with a steal. My total came out to $119 shipped.
This isn't going to help your decision making much but previously I tried out a few friends' cherry boards and didn't find the experience to be overwhelmingly positive. Plus the keyboards I saw at most of the usual places looked more like they belonged at an EDM concert than on my desk, I just wanted something basic without a thousand LEDs. When I was shopping around it seemed like with cherry boards the more basic you want the higher price you have to pay and I couldn't justify that cost with my experience testing them out.
Like I said this is my first mechanical so I'm by no means an expert and haven't had the pleasure of trying a topre but I can see myself hanging onto this matias for a long, long time. It's a fair bit quieter than the rubber dome it replaced and feels infinitely more satisfying to do work on.
Longer story: I am actually the opposite side of the spectrum, I bought this keyboard BECAUSE it had the media keys. For work I have a ton of VMs, shell sessions, etc open at all times and like to have my music on in the background. I often get calls and need to mute, pause, etc and it's a pain to fumble around to get back to whatever media window I have open at the time so media keys are a must. When I received the keyboard I was really excited and disappointed at the same time. Typing was a dream but I sorely missed the extra function keys.
I initially tried to work around it with autohotkey but there were some weird behaviors it would give when sending the media key functions like sending characters through to the virtual machines I had opened or it just wouldn't work at all. Finally, I contacted Matias support and arranged for an exchange for their older board with the media keys and that just arrived today. It works perfectly and doesn't have any of the strange behaviors that I got with AHK. I absolutely love the way this keyboard feels, having to wait the 10 days for my exchange to arrive while going back to my rubber dome was excruciating.
I may post my thoughts on this board in a separate thread if I ever get the time, but since I love typing on this keyboard I might wind up doing it just to have something to write