The tb came that way, but it wasn't correct in placement or how many it had to be touched when the tb was dark. The tb isn't good for programmers when quickly typing text. It's also a complete change for changing volume quickly. This comes into play when switching multiple times every day between full volume meetings on headphones and full or medium volume on speakers. The tb doesn't act the same as original keys just by adding virtual keys.
Yes, these are first-world problems, but this was completly needless and makes the keyboard less useful than all of the other mac keyboard I use daily. It's like Apple thinks that people have one and only one computer they ever use.
I hear you, but - again - using a tool like MTMR allows you to create a huge, persistent esc key in the top left corner, and volume and brightness sliders and buttons, etc.