Apple can innovate as much as they wish. For example put the touchbar above the keyboard or below the LCD. Nobody is complaining about the TouchID on the power button for example, since that maintains its core purpose.
People are complaining because 30+ year old keys they rely on to do their professional work were removed to add arguably a gimmick with a worse user experience/no touch feedback.
Just like people complained when they dropped floppy and and PS/2 for CDs and USB? Or when they introduced a smartphone with no physical keyboard?
Anecdotes don't make it fact.
You can see the difference in reactions to know that it wasn't wanted or desired by the target market. Its not anecdotes anymore, its data which we've had 3 years to accumulate.
Oh, don't underestimate the longevity of the no-floppy and especially the no-ethernet complainers. Just as one data point: there are non-ironic gripes about those decisions in this very thread.
I don't think there is a difference in reactions. A vocal minority complain every time Apple changes anything. Lots of people complained about the chiclet keyboard when the 2008 Macbook Pro came out. And shipping a computer without a floppy drive or a PS/2 port seemed crazy to many people at the time.
Change for the sake of change isn't innovation, it's a waste of time.
Spending hours fiddling with a dysfunctional keyboard that breaks after a week of normal use or has a gimmicky non-standard layout is not how I want to spend my finite time and mental energy.
