The downside with any non-QWERTY keyboard is that you un-learn that layout, making sitting at someone else’s keyboard — or your own laptop an exercise in frustration.

I went through this with a Dvorac ages ago. Took me a good six months to get full speed back on a QWERTY.

I learned to type in school, too — but that was on actual typewriters (the only ‘computer keyboard’ around was a clunky paper-tape terminal (Dartmouth timeshare system).