I don't hate the keyboard. I tried it in a store and after getting over the surprise of the extremely short key travel distance, it is quite usable - but the failure rate, the annoyances, the potential out-of-warranty cost turn it into a complete dealbreaker. It is simply not reliable enough, despite the redesign. Maybe now at the second redesign it's finally OK but no way I'm paying for one until we're certain, and that certainty will take a couple years of real world usage to materialize.

Regarding the touch bar: Indeed the Escape key is what breaks the deal. Honestly if it began after ESC I'd tolerate it - expensive, close to useless, but tolerable.