I think it's impossible to make an objective judgement about whether more key travel is better or worse. Personally I got used to the new keyboard in a couple of hours, and never thought key travel again. I do like the "clickiness" of the keys, but I don't really care how far I have to press it.

I would say the toucbar is a completely useless liability, and the poor durability of the keyboard is an issue, but if they were able to produce a butterfly keyboard which worked reliably and had a physical escape key it would be more than fine for me.