Pay what price, though? That's the question I'm asking. What the heck are people using the Escape key for that's so important that they can't tolerate having to tap the Touch Bar instead of having a physical key?

As for ubiquity, that doesn't mean anything. Just because we've had something for a long time doesn't mean we need to keep having it. For example, my current physical keyboard has no Insert key, but that's a key that keyboards had for a long time (my keyboard replaced that with the Eject key). And yet I didn't even notice its lack until I looked at my keyboard just now.