My Experience With Alternate Keyboard Layouts

So I was looking at E3 coverage the other day because that's what I do for shits and giggles, and came across a soon to be released keyboard from Ducky with dip switches for QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak and something else I can't remember.
At first I didn't know what they were but thanks to the wonders of google I now do, and have modified one of my keyboards to be in Dvorak. For those who lack the motivation to google 'Dvorak', it is an alternate keyboard layout that is designed to improve type speed and endurance of the user, like keyboard Viagra.
Unlike Viagra though, Dvorak is free so I downloaded the layout for windows and have added hotkeys to switch between QWERTY and Dvorak.

and here it is...

At present I am not the fastest or most accurate typist due to lack of actual typing but I'd rate myself at least average and can at least touch type accurately. So over the next few weeks I will be trying to learn Dvorak (and if that goes well Colemak) and will summarise my thoughts at the end with a typing speed test.
Day 1:
Problem number one. I switched the keys round on my keyboard to learn by sight at first, unfortunately this means moving the F and J keys which have the handy bumps on them. It's not a large problem though so hey ho.
Day 3:
If you are trying to game without remapping all of your keys you will find gaming impossible as WASD have moved to the opposite end of the board. However thanks to the magic of hotkeys for layouts this isn't actually a problem. (When I say 'hotkey' I mean Ctrl+shift+0 (or 1) key combinations that can be set in windows language options).
Day 7:
This will make some readers wonder why they read this in the first place. After a week with a Dvorak Keyboard I have given up learning it. My reasons for this are numerous and some in-fact gave Dvorak an unfair disadvantage to QWERTY. Firstly, Dvorak may be faster once you've learnt it, but it's hard to beat a lifetime's work with QWERTY, Dvorak gave me more errors and a slower speed so what's the point, the amount I actually type for long periods won't make up for the time spent learning. Secondly, shortcuts like Ctrl+C etc... are pretty much impossible with Dvorak, and I use these a lot, in this case it slowed me down through it's design and not my lack of practice, colemak is said to solve these but colemak is so similar to QWERTY that it might as well be the same. One of the slightly unfairer reasons for giving up was that I swapped the keys on my crappy wireless keyboard, which doesn't register keystrokes half the time and is just not very nice to use. Other reasons include me accidentally switching modes by accident (there's a lot of Ctrl+Shift+something in Photoshop) and the fact that in the long run, the only keyboards that would work with Dvorak would be mine, or those of others sad enough to change theirs too. There's no point partaking in the typing speed test, it won't show up anything new.

QWERTY master race

So really I can conclude this piece by saying, just don't bother, use the more widely adopted standard.