But if you're hunt a peck QWERTY typist who decides to pick up touch typing, choosing an ergonomic layout like Dvorak or Colemak makes sense. You're essentially staring from zero anyways so you're not wasting much time on the layout anymore so than you would on the QWERTY layout.
This way, you retain your two-finger QWERTY skills while learning a layout that minimizes the odds of developing RSI.
I agree that good typing skills do not necessarily make you a more productive programmer. But I do find that it is a skill that compliments other programming skills nicely. It's also nice for countless other parts of my workflow that do not include programming.
That being said, you will never know the benefits of touch typing if you can't touch type. You seem to be threatened by the thought of it being a valuable skill so I won't try to convince you otherwise.
> there are literally thousands of things you can do that will be much more useful than learning to touch type dvorak.
You could say this about any skill or hobby. You are not the arbiter of usefulness. Plenty of people have derived utility from learning to touch type Dvorak or Colemak. You're writing them off out of pure ignorance.
Being someone who did that, yes I would say so and recommend against it. However one thing I can say about it is that it (Colemak to be specific) felt legitimately more comfortable, having all the most frequently pressed keys on the home row. If you're suffering from RSI it might help.