The developers where I work who have new MBPs complain a lot about the keyboard, the lack of ports, the lack of an escape key, and the lack of an SD card slot.
I had a new MBP for a few months and hated it.
As soon as an old MBP freed up, I traded in for it. SO much happier, and my friends are jealous.
And I pretty much live in emacs. Where I use the escape key regularly. C-x ESC ESC is one of my go-tos.