After getting a comment from the creator of kanata (an awesome piece of software by the way) that he found my story amusing, I figured that I'd also post it here, partly as fun, partly as a cautionary tale. Also, I'd appreciate any tips as to what to check for in my system, it's a weird feeling to know that some stuff might have been messed up under the hood.
Because ortholinear split keyboards aren't that easy to come by (I got tired of confusing my fingers when reaching for letters between them, now there is no "between", just straight columns. Also, I can hold my hands at shoulder width!), on the other hand this was an option I had all the necessary hardware for, and with some software configuration it is actually really usable!
(The question could potentially also be "Why aren't more people using two numpads as a keyboard?", but I guess that the answer would be somewhere between they don't care about and they don't know about the advantages it would provide. 🙃)