"The antenna's not bad on the phone, you're holding it wrong!", "the lack of pressure sensitivity on the touchbar isn't bad, you're typing on it wrong!"
It's a design flaw. Apple does make them, it's a price of innovation. It will likely be addressed in future versions. For now, we find workarounds, not mock the victims.
There are a few apps I've found which claim to address the issue. None are perfect.
"Better Touch Tool" lets you replace the whole menu: as well as adding buttons, you can also turn off the escape key and its own icon leaving only one button to toggle back to the normal toolbar. [I initially thought the icon could not be removed, but the setting's right there: I was just being blind.] This means that the bar can be easily toggled on/off depending on your needs. It is, however, $6.50.
"Touch Bar Disabler" is free and does what it says on the tin, disabling the touchbar. It adds non-remappable global Ctrl+number hotkeys to change volume and brightness, but none for toggling the touchbar (that's a click-the-icon, select-menu-item thing. It also disables changing the touchbar display, and requires manually disabling System Integrity Protection. All told, not an ideal solution.
"Karabiner-Elements" is also free, lets you remap the esc key to, say, the shift key. Ideally, Fn-Esc or somesuch could then become Esc, but to remap key-combos rather than single keys requires JSON editing. Probably worth doing, though, and might commit that to github so that it can be installed as an "internet rule". Downside of this is that for things like vi your muscle memory is "broken".
There are various other workarounds proposed:
"lrn 2 type lolzor!" Possible, perhaps, for newbie typists, but not a reasonable proposition for those with muscle memory older than the trolls saying this.
Install the recent patch. A recent ("10.13") patch allegedly added a delay to address this, but it appears to have been reverted since: in my 10.13.6 there is no delay and a tap on Esc still immediately, for example, discards any IM message being composed, without undo.
Edit the bar. Removing all the virtual buttons other than the non-removable escape key resolves much of the problem for many. However, esc cannot be removed, nor moved on the bar.
Electrical tape. This has worked for some, but even multiple layers of it have not worked for others.
Put objects in the way. Extremely low tech and sucky, and fails if you are not on a desk -- is to rest a pen on the bar. This prevents hovering fingers from brushing against the bar, but poses a risk of screen damage if forgetting the pens when closing the screen. If you are mobile, taping down a pen might work, but that makes the risk of screen damage more acute.
Make a shield. A piece of thin card, or transparent plastic, taped at the top edge, could cover the bar while still allowing it to be flipped up when you felt like using the bar for something.
Get a different laptop. Sadly, there are no other 15" macbook pros without the bar.
Get a different keyboard. This is a valid option for desk users, if they have enough desk space, though it's a shame - the rest of the laptop's keyboard is frankly a complete delight to type on.
All of these are regrettably poor workarounds for flawed hardware, but all are one hell of a lot better than "it's not a problem for me, so you must have bad hands. Develop better hands before using Apple products!"
