What is idiotic about the Touchbar that is not idiodic about function keys? You have to look at your keyboard to hit the function keys, why not use the glance for a visual feedback loop?
As an example, these days, when routing PCB tracks in KiCad, when I need to switch to a different board layer, I need to look away from screen and at the keyboard in order to hit the right function key. I also have to pray that the TouchBar will register my press, as it often likes to go to "sleep". I don't know if it did register my press until I look back at my screen and check if I'm on the right layer.
Having to look away from the screen when you're in the middle of routing a track on a complex multi-layer board is really annoying.
Plus, it's difficult to keep a hand near the function keys without accidentally getting near one of the touchbar areas, which results in a keypress, which results in a zoom-out for me (F1).
It's an abysmal user experience and a huge regression.
No, you are doing it wrong. Never need to see keyboard except when using touchbar thanks to no feedback.
And in line with the other commenters, my corporate HP and Dell laptop function keys aren't grouped. Fortunately, I interact with both through a nice external keyboard.
no