Haha the edit about split keyboards, you know my every damn move. But really, I think you’re onto something there about finding a way to make your home row into a number row via some kind of layering. How exactly that’s done depends on what keyboard you’re using: if it’s an external keyboard then maybe you could use a QMK board and make custom layers for that. If it’s the keyboard built into your laptop, I’ve seen people mention KMonad working well for them, maybe that’s worth looking into.
I had the same reaction when he suddenly dropped the “ulterior motives line” and my hopes became true.
Been watching his stuff for a while, and it was great to see a pretty successful artist find a way to make their pipeline work, and also talk about it.