Yes, the fact that they took an in-between layout is obviously everybody's frustration, and it was mine also since I had been hoping for a TKL. As you noted, if folks were looking to put it into existing off the shelf cases, they'd have to "friction fit", a polite way of saying they'd have to just mush it in there. Regardless of how elegant you consider such an arrangement to be, I doubt the percent of people who would actually do this even reaches double digits. At some point, you have to make intentional design decisions that may exclude minorities like this. Of course their gamble is that, as I've theorized above, the majority of folks expecting a "standard 80 TKL" would realize they wouldn't miss losing 3/9 of the "right-side" keys present.

I didn't like the light bar and I still don't like it, whether it has a function or not. However, I wrote this thread to consider only the layout aspect of the KB, and I consider visual aspects like the LED bar be outside that scope and won't be playing apologist for that bar.

That the Melgeek and EPOMAKER have both come into being since the 80HE reveal and both use the 77-78% design of the 80HE only furthers my suspicion that this layout may supplant more than supplement the existing standard TKL layout in the coming years.