I'm very happy with my Glove80. I started with a prototype 3D printed model last year: the creators are friends of mine, and I wrote the LED status display code for them. I also dropped the prototype down a flight of concrete stairs (sorry! It still works though).
I now have a production model with the white clicky keyswitches. Ultra happy with it. I've been using Kinesis Advantage2s for a shade over two decades - the same model DanielDK used for a long time. The Glove80 is simply better. I prefer the clicky keyswitches. Ergonomics are great. It's really repairable - everything is held together with screws (spare parts for my Advantage2s are not available, and the function keys are not repairable). Open firmware so you can make it do wacky stuff if the need arises. Small and light enough for travel - I should get a proper case but it's survived a fair few trips stuffed into my backpack.
Yeah, adaptation to new keyboard layouts is hard. I used a layout that mimicked my old Advantage2 - so I'd paid the cost to learn columnar already. I found the default Glove80 layout was better, but switching meant a month of confusing Ctrl and Shift. All better now!
As a general question to anybody that used the Kinesis Advantage and switched to the Glove80: how's the thumb cluster?
The double-length keys for bk/delete/enter/space allows a lot of vertical travel freedom on the hand. Instead of flexing the fingers I can just move the whole hand down and hit the lower row _very_ comfortably while not having to worry about the thumb at all.
I've mocked a few pieces of paper to advantage with the shape of the glove80 cluster and I really can't decide if that's good or bad. While the inner thumb keys of the advantage are pretty far from the key wells, the most important modifiers are all closer compared to the glove80.
Trying it on the mockup, the glove80 cluster placement forces my hand on a higher position and requires the thumb to stretch more.
I've been looking at the advantage 360 and I don't like the complete removal of the Fn row, while at the same time I also hate the old Fn keys on the advantage. The glove80 layout is really nice, but I find the thumb cluster of the advantage to be pretty darn good.
Left Side Backspace Delete Ctrl Alt Home End
Right Super Key Ctrl Page Up Page Down Enter Space
The keys are easy to hit, but the biggest problem is the space bar. On a typical keyboard the space bar is accessible from either thumb. This makes it so that if you are using the mouse and are playing an FPS, then you can still jump. This is not possible on the Kinesis Advantage withought modifying the keys. I use the Smartset program, and have a profile specifically for games that fixes this, but it might be annoying to some
The second is that fact that there is not print screen key on the advantage. I take a lot of screenshots for work so this is annoying. I've set one of the 4 macro keys to be the key combination I need to make screenshots, but again this required some configuration.
With that being said I still like the keyboard. My hands feel great even after 12 hours of mixed browsing, coding, and writing. My posture is better, and I don't get pain in my vertebrae next to my shoulder blade. But there are definitely things I would change if I was making it from scratch. Maybe in the future I'll Diy a dactyl-manuform^1 which has the perfect switches and layout for me.