Then remap Caps Lock to Escape right now. There's no good reason not to, considering how easy MacOS makes it.
Can't help you with F-keys though. Never used them myself. On Mac OS there's usually an alternate keyboard shortcut. That row of keys is too far away from home row to be ergonomically useful.
My current keyboard doesn't have that row at all. Actually that was a bit of an issue since I'm using Windows with that keyboard, and unlike Mac OS, there's some real need for F-keys. So I had to remap F3 and F4, but that was all.
In my opinion, the trackpad is a really great idea on paper, as that row should never be used for frequent typing anyway. And it's pretty close to the screen, so it's not too far to look down. But it doesn't seem like they've managed to make it work in practice. I've seen some people who have had success with some customisation though.