Apple could have added the touch bar on top of the function keys instead of replacing the function keys, and they would have avoided the entirety of the criticism. Nobody hates the touch bar, we just love the function keys.
This is how I feel about it. If the touch bar were above the top row of keys, it could still be useful for innovative things like video scrubbing, etc., but yet let other users move quickly with physical keys for day-to-day tasks.
