Comment by variadix

I largely agree. Split, ortho/columnar, and tenting is 90% of the strain benefits. The biggest benefit from layout change (for programmers at least) is moving symbols and numbers to a layer where they share positions with alpha keys so you don’t have to extend to type them. Any benefit I could imagine from switching alpha layouts (more even utilization between left and right hand for typing prose) is mitigated by the switching cost when trying to use a normal computer.