Thanks for the great write-up! It's interesting to see how much room there is for personalizing and optimization once you lift the lid on the first change. I started the journey with an ErgoDox and now am typing this on a fully custom hand-wired beast. The great thing about the ErgoDox though is that (a) you can just buy it and (b) it runs QMK and can be programmed through their simple web interface.
For anyone reading this and seeing all the craziness in the post and the linked comments, it's entirely do-able to learn multiple layouts/keyboards and keep them mentally separate. The key thing is to use them both regularly. It doesn't have to be an either-or proposition between "use the standard keyboard of the Earth" and "use this hyper-personalized one". You can in fact use both as long as you don't go cold-turkey and stop using a standard keyboard for six months.
For anyone reading this and seeing all the craziness in the post and the linked comments, it's entirely do-able to learn multiple layouts/keyboards and keep them mentally separate. The key thing is to use them both regularly. It doesn't have to be an either-or proposition between "use the standard keyboard of the Earth" and "use this hyper-personalized one". You can in fact use both as long as you don't go cold-turkey and stop using a standard keyboard for six months.