Having used a touchbar MacBook Pro for the last year daily (both for developing and casual use) I also agree with the article. For the most part I ignore it as I usually have a tethered monitor and keyboard setup. However for those times when I do work directly off the keyboard I more often than not accidentally hit a button (the worst being accidentally triggering a build and being tied up for 10 seconds trying to frantically cancel).

I think it would transcend gimmick into useful feature if they added haptic feedback of some kind when it is used. I have plenty of memorized keyboard shortcuts so that I do not need to avert my eyes from the screen when typing, something that the touchbar requires to actually properly use. With some kind of physical feedback I would be more easily able to integrate it's use into my workflows, especially so if you could customize haptic feedback based on virtual buttons.