To me, the more compelling reason to skip the First Gen is not because of defects, but missing features.
I’ve regretted purchasing most Apple 1st Gen products because the 2nd Gen inevitably includes newly added and highly desirable features. This happened with the original Retina MacBook Pro (2nd Gen added 802.11ac WiFi and 2x faster Flash storage), original iPod Touch (2nd Gen added an extremely useful physical volume control), 1st Gen iPad Pro (no P3 wide color or True Tone),
2nd Gen’s I’m GLAD I WAITED FOR: 2015 5k iMac which added the greater superior P3 Wide color display; and the 2017 MacBook Pro update with its superior Kaby Lake processors, and somewhat improved Butterfly keyboard. But, I’ve since sold this and bought the 2018 MacBook Air Retina, and this is one 1st Gen I didn’t regret, since the 2019 revision, while it did add True Tone, significantly downgraded the SSD speed.
As for the 16” MBP, when the 2020 revision appears with some new awesome, necessary feature, $3000 worth of buyer’s remorse is going to HUGELY suck!