The point to “d” and “k” was that even if one of your hands was shifted by a letter, you’d still feel the nub, but you’d feel it on the wrong finger and know.
By moving the nub to “f” and “j”, they broke that contract. It’s harder to notice the absence of a nub than it is to notice it’s under the wrong finger.
I worked as a relay operator that summer -- AT&T had a TTY terminal and a billing terminal and me in between; I'd get phone calls from someone with a TTY/TDD (typically a person "hard of hearing") and a person without the TTY/TDD device (such as a school chum or a pizza place or relative). It was my job to relay what I heard or read to the other party. I then would have to enter the session into the AT&T billing system. Oh, and obviously I had a phone setup as well; interestingly there was no automated dialing system I had to just read the number from one interface and dial into another. I think to this day I can touch type a phone number pad with only my right and and a "regular" number pad only with my left.
These two devices had different home key setups (one with nubs, one with deep indentations) -- they had different number pad setups (one was "normal 10key" the other was setup like a telephone number pad) , and obviously my job was to be a super fast but accurate typist.
So when I got to school and was confronted by yet another cursed keyboard I snapped and "fixed" them. I would like to think everyone in the lab except the rich kid with a IIci in his dorm who was just using the laser printer to print his fanfics appreciated it.
Your logic is sound; I'm not going to disagree on principals but my fingers would get really agitated when trying to use those things.
The point to “d” and “k” was that even if one of your hands was shifted by a letter, you’d still feel the nub, but you’d feel it on the wrong finger and know.
By moving the nub to “f” and “j”, they broke that contract. It’s harder to notice the absence of a nub than it is to notice it’s under the wrong finger.