First of all you are spot-on about ZSA. I bought my Ergodox-EZ in May and they have been super helpful with pre and post purchase support.
Now I don’t have a Planck-EZ, but do have an Ortho60 from Cannonkeys which is similar but with more keys than the ZSA Planck. I find I prefer having as many keys on a single layer as possible. So I actually use the Ergodox-EZ almost all the time. I have a separate “coding” layer where I’ve put the full set of alpha/num keys, but then set the thumb keys to the most commonly used punctuation. I then still have a option to shift to a strictly number/symbol layer when I need a numpad on the right hand and all my symbols on the left. AND, not enough can be said for the ZSA online configurator. It is SO easy and quick to use and it offers almost all of the QMK features in a point and click GUI. This is what won me over the other Ergodox options out there. I’ve probably created over 100 revisions of my layout to reach my ideal setup (so far!).
As far as switching back to a laptop keyboard, I found that really hard and it impeded my getting used to the Ergo. I started taking the Ergo with me to work so I pretty much use it exclusively.
Hope this helps!
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