Out of curiousity, how much does keeping the qwerty positions of ZXCVBM.,/[]Q-=ASH compromise the most optimal design?
And how many of these were positioned for compatibility, and how many are in the same place more or less by luck?
How much does the design criterion "Colemak has been designed to keep hand changes [from QWERTY] to the absolute minimum in order to ease learning." compromise the ideal layout?
If keeping qwerty positions was a design criterion, is there any particular reason W has moved one key across?