However, it’s not too bad as long as I can connect to the external keyboard.
Whilst i get that this is a work-around, this is sold as a premium machine. If i wanted to be plugging in external keyboards just to have something that wasn't objectively worse for my use case, i'd buy some crappy chromebook. Not spend 3x the amount on a high end machine.
Apple's portable keyboards used to be pretty great. My 2015's still is....