Well then it's still exactly the same? You can either press fn or change your preferences. You opted for the latter. Do that again?
So the touchbar has a setting where it behaves precisely like the current MBP? Esc, row of 12 keys, which are either f1-f12 or media with a setting, and are toggled between with fn? That's strictly worse if I only ever use it like that because it's the same but with soft keys, but sure that's basically the same.