One thing I found to make the touchbar less annoying is go keyboard -> Touchbar shows "Expanded Control Strip". At least then you get a full strip of useful buttons that aren't constantly switching with the application.

The main issue though is with "Expanded Control Strip" the touchbar locks up (while holding a key down) about 2 or 3 times a week (which can only be fixed by a restart or: "sudo pkill TouchBarServer")

The whole thing is pretty inexcusable for such an expensive machine, but I like the macos ecosystem.