Interesting. I use Workman as well on my 40% keyboards (standard keyboards I use QWERTY and don't even attempt to touch type). I think learning Workman and Vim at the same time is what saved me.

I never remapped anything, I just avoid h/j/k/l (I have my arrow keys bound to the homerow) and added a bunch of bindings (F3-8, for example) that wouldn't normally be of much use to me (sitting behind the fn key on my laptop) but are also homerow-accessible.

I have transitioned to emacs + evil lately, and found that mostly seamless, but I can imagine it would have been rough if I was trying to keep QWERTY muscle memory.