I don't believe the Air got rid of the Touch Bar -- it never had it. It was only on the Pro. What's so "Pro" about replacing the useful function keys (including the escape key) with a bar that does nothing but pick emojis is beyond me.

I strongly dislike the Touch Bar. I'm typing this on a 2019 MacBook Pro whose Touch Bar died yesterday, leaving me with no escape key, no volume buttons, no keyboard brightness buttons, and no play/pause button -- leaving me to do all of those in software -- including escape.

I never found a single useful purpose for the Touch Bar's main mode, so from about two weeks after I bought it, it's been set to simply show function keys ("expanded control strip"). This means I have function keys that accidentally activate when I'm trying to type numbers, that timeout and disappear to save battery, that can't be 'hovered' (touching without pressing) and that have no tactile feedback, slowing you down by forcing you to look away from the screen. And now - I've lost the entire row.

Protip: remap capslock to escape. It's supported in the OS settings.

That's what I've done, but I hate having to adjust my typing habit. It's annoying enough that thanks to the touch bar I'm now incapable of typing escape on any other computer (because I'm in the habit of merely touching escape, not pushing it), now I have to adjust again and I'm going to be in the habit of pushing caps lock.

Here's a windows utility you might find useful: https://github.com/susam/uncap

And here's an editor that's accommodating to your newly trained typing skills ;) https://www.vim.org/