Well, now they can use the touch bar to show those functions depending on context. Isn't that better overall for usability rather than having to remember keybinds for every action?

I usually don't have to _remember_ keybindings, I use them out of muscle memory and feeling the actual keys with my fingers, using the larger cracks in desktop keyboard between the function keys to find the right way quickly without averting my eyes from the screen. No touch bar can replace that kind of efficiency.

Maybe, but for the average user who doesn't have keybinds committed to muscle memory, the touch bar is going to be a real boon.

So... the common non-pro user that would look down on the keyboard anyway?

If I've got to constantly look between the screen and the keyboard to make sure my finger hasn't wandered off "step into" and onto "continue", then that feels much worse for usability.

It seems like it would be better in the short term (don't have to learn the bindings), but worse in the long term if it's something you do often (no way to find the keys' edges without looking every time you press the key, with the occasional glance down again to correct for drift).

Whether that's "better overall" or not depends on individual usage patterns. Personally, I don't really stray from the alphanumeric part of the keyboard often, and I can rebind esc, so the Touchbar's mostly a moot point for me. My strongest reason to dislike it is that it adds yet another set of potential points of failure for the machine without providing (for my purposes) much benefit.

For those apps you can just enable "function mode", if it's not already enabled by default.