Thanks for the suggestion I will give this a try. I currently have Esc + <some key> bound to some of my most common actions. For me the 80/20 rule seems to apply to emacs shortcut keys, so making just a couple of them easier has a big impact.
an alternative route (what i've been doing for the past 5 years or so) is to switch left Ctrl with left Alt. My emacs life was never the same after.