Something like the MX Master is a lot better but a vertical mouse is better still if your wrists have seen better days.
e.g. https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/lift-vertical-e... or https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/mx-vertical-erg...
Agreed – in the sense that you'll need strong analgesics when consistently using them.
And contrary to popular opinion good design is both usable and looks good, many just skip to the looks good part and call it a day. When do users notice their mouse is empty? When they want to use it. Charging preventing use in thst case is just bad design.
The only reason for this port placement is a marketing and anti-consumer one - to prevent people using mouse permanently plugged in.
I think you are reading way too much into this. That is likely not the reason.
The previous iteration of the Magic Mouse, which is actually quite old and created in the Steve Jobs era, was basically identical to the current one, but took AA batteries and had a door in the same spot underneath the mouse. When they decided to make the thing rechargeable, that was likely the easiest/least costly/most obvious spot to put the new battery and charging apparatus without changing any other parts of the mouse. You can bet accessories division is not the most resourced/staffed part of hardware engineering at Apple, so they would have to make do with whatever they are given. The calculus must have been "is this going to cause an issue for the user?" and as the charging is not frequent they decided to go with it. I am fairly confident their product has decent/good customer satisfaction rating, as is, and they have not received many complaints from the real user in this long time, just loud people in the news/social media. If not, it likely would have been fixed by now.
It would be even wilder if it wasn't, since this is a decision that is so different from what the rest of the market is doing. That would suggest a significant level of neglect in their product planning department.
But on the other hand if any comapny could get away with such neglect it would be them. The curious thing is that Apple has such a reputation for good design that people will defend things they would laugh out of the room if e.g. Microsoft did the exact same thing with a slightly less sleek styling. When they defend the following sentence you know they have become the ultimate consumer: You're holding it wrong.
Ergonomics become more important as you age. I'm afraid all the multitouch gestures in the world won't fix RSI, especially not a Type 2 like Carpal Tunnel. Can't speak for you, but using my computer comfortably is a critical part of my job.
The psychological aspect that's not discussed about the mouse port on the bottom is that some people get anxious about a battery running down. So even if it's a once a month, and just do it when it tells you to and take a 15 minute break, the problem with the port on the bottom is that there's a battery that will eventually run out and psychologically, not being able to charge it while using it just feels wrong, no matter how much that's not a real problem. It's an emotion and marketing is all about playing on people's emotions. BMW doesn't sell a car with a V10 that makes 577 horsepower, they sell the ultimate driving machine. Apple knows this better than most consumer products companies so it's just weird for them to stick to their butterfly keyboards, er, guns like that.