Built a Corne with low profile switches last year and the small key count felt impossible until home row mods clicked. Once you train the muscle memory for mod-taps on ASDF/JKL;, you stop reaching for corners entirely and the 42-key layout starts feeling like enough. Honestly the split itself was less of a revelation than remapping my fingers to treat the home row as a modifier layer.
Last time I tried home row mods I could not get over how bad it felt having the letter not appear until I lifted the key rather than immediately on the keypress. Am I just overly sensative or is this just something you get used to over time?
I had a much better experience shifting them down a row so they’re “bottom row mods”, since those keys (if using QWERTY) are much less frequently used.
There’s also features like chordal hold and flow tap which have improved the home/bottom row mod behaviour.