While Apple is certainly far from infallible and has made blunders before (sometimes from neglect, once in a while from a fundamental blunder in their understanding of proper target market functionality), what you've written seems to come up like clockwork with nearly every change they make. "Oh, but someone else did the idea before!" I really don't understand why so many tech people in particularly seem to have difficulty grasping that ideas are usually of only marginal value, the real key value any given effort brings to the table is the implementation. There is a world of difference between a mediocre implementation of a decent idea and a stellar one, even if they're 100% the exact same concept. In fact sometimes a great implementation of a mediocre concept can even beat out a crappy one of an amazing concept. Even good intentions and hard work are not enough in software or hardware development.
From a fundamentals perspective I'm honestly pretty surprised by the visceral instant rejection, without having seen anything about the actual implementation, by crowds at HN, Ars, etc. I don't really see how this is fundamentally much different from what I've already got in macOS with my MS Natural Ergo 4000 keyboard and the universal generic USB driver "ControllerMate", which allows me to arbitrarily alter key mappings (including full scripts) for any active application. I don't generally change the main layout of course, but I do have dozens of profiles changing the upper function and special keys to suit the program I'm in, which I find particularly valuable for jumping from GUI apps to Vim and other CLI programs with a different history of thinking about UI behind them.
Apple trying to just making this more available for the average user in a more flashy way may or may not be helpful for a pro, but I also don't see how it would be particularly harmful. What's with all stuff about "no more escape" and the like, what difference does it make if you tap the corner to get escape? As long as inputs are there that show up on the USB HCI what's the issue? On the other hand having a good Touch ID implementation (presumably with the HSM included) available built-in could range from great to fantastic depending on how much custom use we're able to make of it.
Apple's current non-AIO desktops (Mac Mini, Mac Pro) are utter junk and that's really depressing, but they've put more effort into their notebooks while maybe this MBP will disappoint too but I don't think the massive doom mongering in this or the other thread seems justified just yet.