Personally I'm not sure it's worth it longer term. 5x3+2 is my preference but I'm doing this to sort my layers so I can try some of the unibody split keyboards that have less keys to go round.

Yeah I'm doing it to establish a common layout for my symbol / number / navigation layers more than anything else, so I can expand from there to some 28 and 30 key keyboards as well as the Ferris Sweep with some consistant muscle memory.

It's my own layout starting from Colemak DH with the "missing" outer keys on another layer.

Somewhere in the middle? More of late night realisation than anything else.

To be fair I am planning on putting them back at some point.

I'm working on a core 18-key layout that I can expand anywhere up to 34 keys, so I have a consistent layout that I can use on some of the unibody split keyboards that are usually in that range of keys.

Beautiful design. I love the casing over the nice view and roller.

I just worked out that a rotary controller can be mapped onto a mouse scroll wheel, which suddenly makes a lot of sense. I've been sitting here thinking "why would I want a volume knob? Why would I want two?" Is there anything else I am missing about rotary controllers?

I think once you accept that standard keyboards are laid out as they are just by convention and nothing else, and that moving to a new layout will take a bit of time, the prospect of having a keyboard where everything is exactly where you want it to be becomes quite thrilling. This is actually my first bit of real typing using Colemak DH. It is excruciatingly slow to touch type but I didn't know it at all two weeks ago. In two more weeks time I'll have my first split keyboard in my hands. So it's definately doable...

I would add "and only if it is a fresh build" because while I am interested in seeing new builds, and I do want to support vendors, I don't want to be spammed here. A pinned thread for vendor news as the other commentor suggested would do just as well for info.