I'm not a power user or anything, but the touch bar feels like a downgrade to me. The context-sensitive display has sat there unused for months, while important buttons I use multiple times daily, like those for brightness and volume adjustments, now require the use of two-step touch-and-slide actions instead of my preferred key-mashing. I guess it's a matter of personal preference, but given the cost of the product it'd be great to be able to opt out.

The TouchBar would have much better potential if they integrated a Taptic engine, and better again if it was a taptic engine which gave you feedback when you were over a button you could press (which is quite possible, some of the initial taptic research could make you feel sensations - from memory something like waves or water?)

And then required force to execute the button - "force touch" / "3d touch" - not an accidental tap.

I really hope they iterate to have at that, at which point it would be much better.

The lack of a substantial spec bump (all I really wanted was more memory and CPU) made me ditch my work Macbook Pro for a linux laptop.

It's not being forced on anybody. You can buy the model with the function keys. You can also buy another laptop from another manufacturer.

Apple should sell non-TouchBar versions of everything for Touchbar prices. Users can get what they like and Apple can make more money off Fn keys.