>I find them all tactily unpleasant

Unlike rubber dome keyboards which trigger at the bottom of the stroke, mechanical keyboards trigger mid-stroke. You don't have to bottom out the keys, which reduces shock loading of your fingers. If you actually want to bottom out the keys, you can approximate the rubber dome feeling by using a linear keyswitch modded with a soft o-ring around the stem to cushion the impact.

There are all kinds of mechanical keyboards. Not every one is going to suit everyone's tastes.

> plus what's with the stripped down layouts?

The most common kind of 'squished down' is because it's "small like a laptop keyboard". The common sentiment seems to be: "I don't use those keys often, so I don't need them on the keyboard".

Though there's another kind of small keyboard: small keyboards with multiple thumb keys. Multiple thumb keys then allow the thumbs to do much more than a typical keyboard, & so allow bringing the full functionality of the keyboard to within reach of the hands on home row.