I've never had the touch bar malfunction, nor do I find it distracting or too bright at night, even on a lakeside dock in cottage country.
I agree, though, that occasionally I will switch the input language to French due accidentally hitting the the bar. It's too sensitive.
The biggest surprise for me, though, was that I don't miss the physical F keys nor Escape, even a little bit.
Using solely the laptop keyboard was fine. Transitioning between the laptop keyboard and an external was not.
I ended up adding a binding for "jk" to exit editing mode. Very pleased
What does annoy me is that there's no way to disable it on the fly. For example I often drag-select the paragraph I'm reading and Preview changes the Touch bar every time I do with highlighting options. It's distracting at the exact moment I'm trying to focus on what I'm reading. I've had to shift reading to a tablet.
Other than that I'm pleased with the Touch bar. I think the sound and brightness controls are easier to use than before. I appreciate the TouchID.
Enough of the hard sell, take my money!