I think a lot of the negativity comes from the odd choice of keyboard layout.

You can think of it as a weirdness budget: this is an odd-purposed device, running a specialty distribution of Linux by design. It is not portable despite having portable-like specs. And on top of this, it has an unusual keyboard layout.

It costs a lot of money and requires pre-orders, so you can't even impulse buy it. You can't actually see if you'd like the keyboard switch or layout in stores, either.