Don't get me wrong, Im not bumbling and stumbling alone. I can usually bang out 60-70 wpm pretty routinely but its when I go to hit a number or symbol that's off the beaten path, that's when I need to glance down to make sure Im getting where Im supposed to. And since all I do aside from gaming is post on forums so Im usually starting and stopping, looking for the bracket keys, figuring things up on the calculator and stuff so never looking at the keyboard doesn't work for me.
Yeah my BlackWidow has volume keys thru the Fn+F1, 2 and 3 keys but I prefer a 1 button setup. Mainly I want the mute button on 1 key because Ive got a 3 year old boy that's always running in wanting something or the wife yelling at me from the other room and its just nice to be able to hit the bottom macro key to mute everything. Im not saying these are things I cant live without but theyre nice little conveniences that I prefer to have. I agree with you that too many macro keys are a little pointless like the billion you get on my G510. 1 single row of 5 is more than plenty.
Yeah but in Crysis for example, all the keys around the WASD keys are already taken for the most part. I have big hands but stubby fingers and like all me keys close as possible to the WASD cluster and reaching all the way over to hit the N key to bring up nanovision or B for binoculars is a pain. I can bind it to the top 2 macro keys is a lot easier for me to reach over there with my pinky and hit when I need them quick.
Trust me, I spent the first 25 years of PC gaming with basic office type keyboards and only within the last 3 years started using gaming keyboards so I know how to make due with them. Im not saying gaming keyboard features are necessities, but they are nice conveniences to have and I see no reason not to use them. And again, this is a hobby I do for fun so I like having cool looking gear with cool features and play pretties to mess around with.