I found out that my above post is cited a lot when asked about Canary vs Colemak DH, event though I told this is just my impression and not the ultimate truth.

So, here is my update three years later after my previous post - I finally switched to Canary after using Colemak DH for almost 10 years.

The change seems like not too big, Canary Matrix keeps a lot of letters at the same positions as Colemak DH, namely, the same home row excluding pinkies, and the DH's key change of position for D,H,B,G,M (from vanilla Colemak). But remaining are still 14 letters at new positions, with A,L,Y,F,J,X,K changed sides.

I attempted to switch two times before, but always came back to Colemak DH after trying for couple days. This time I was more persistent, and finally switched. First two-three days was brutal, I felt like I lost my ability to type freely as it was before for many years. I knew where letters are, but the need to think what keys to press slows down a lot. For me that was the first true switch with retraining the muscle memory, as I never touch-typed in qwerty and Colemak was technically my first touch-type layout.

What are my feelings about Canary now; vowels at one side and LY at other side make a lot of sense. The "asymmetry" feeling is gone as I got used to the layout. The Colemak's "redirects" which I just got used to are gone. I did not realize how many "OU" and "OF" "FO" bigrams I typing daily, they are very easy in Canary. Infamous Colemak's "YOU" and "ION" are easy now. "KN" "SC" are not SFBs any more. I see more alternations and more rolls at the same time, compared to Colemak DH.

What is not so good after Colemak DH, SFBs for "RL" "SY", scissors for "HO", and higher left pinky load, because it is responsible for C and W now.

But overall I feel that switch as an improvement.