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The solution is very simple: use a keymapper. I map my Caps Lock to Escape. I use Karabiner for macOS. And better yet, recently the Japanese developer Takayama Fumihiko open sourced it: https://github.com/tekezo/Kara...

For many years, he has been maintaining Karabiner, and with every update to OS X/macOS, he was ready with a new version to support the new OS. It's astounding, really. Every year, I donate because it's worth it to me: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner...

I really like the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic. Marco Arment has a nice review from 2013. He recently compared it to a Matias Ergo Pro.

Note that I'm a Mac user (yeah LOL Apple, I know right?) but with the right freeware, you're able to map, for example, the Caps Lock key to Escape. I used to work on an awesome Sun keyboard that had the escape key right there, for vi and all that good stuff.

I don't see too many laptops with a dedicated numpad, but if you're interested you can use KeyRemap4Macbook to remap a section of keys with the 'fn'. That's a Mac thing, I'd assume Windows has something similar for keyboard remapping...

On the Mac side at least, I use KeyRemap4Macbook to enable the 7-8-9 columns as a numpad with the 'fn' key (which reproduces what older Macbooks did by default). Perhaps a similar configuration utility exists on the Windows side? I don't see many non-gigantic 'desktop replacement' laptops that feature a dedicated numpad.

If it's not enough to change key defaults on an application-by-application basis (and the Finder is an application), you can remap every key on the keyboard, see:

http://www.pqrs.org/tekezo/macosx/keyremap4macbook/document.html/

It even has 1-click defaults for IBM Keyboard layouts and the Happy Hacking Keyboard. It's open source, natch.

If you don't own a laptop, Mini or iMac, there are others, and other approaches, including just creating your own KB layout.

Mac System 6 and 7 and OS8 and 9 were also very easy to change key combinations by application, or system wide, or via keyboard layout.
I always mapped Command-S to Shutdown in the Finder, because even though Command-S is a system-wide default for Save, there is no Save function in the Finder, so it was free to be used.
One click and walk away. Trite, I know, but still my favourite mod ever. Took about 30 seconds to implement, too.

I am relatively new to the OS-X world myself (been using it for about 7 months now; I was a Linux user for 10 years, and a SunOS Unix user for about 10 years before that). At first I was annoyed about not being able to do some of the key remapping under OS-X that I used to do under Linux (e.g. I didn't see any easy way to turn the backquote/tilde key into an escape/tilde key, and the escape key into a backquote/tilde key).

I then came across the following little program:
http://www.pqrs.org/tekezo/macosx/keyremap4macbook/

Despite the name, it's not only for MacBooks; I use it on my iMacs as well. The author is very receptive to suggestions, plus you can download the source and add stuff yourself if you like. I'm not saying this will necessarily solve the original poster's problems, but I've found this thing handy enough that I thought it was worth mentioning here.

You don't need MacFUSE, all you need is this: http://mac.pqrs.org/sshfs

Note, it requires a reboot after you've installed it. Then to mount files from any Unix server you have an account on that's running SSH, just do:

% mkdir -p ~/sshfs/server1
% /Applications/sshfs/bin/mount_sshfs username@server1.somewhere.org: ~/sshfs/server1

I'm currently setting up 4 x HP-UX servers at the moment, and it's great to be able to browse their directory trees, edit files, and drag/drop thing in Finder; or even do stuff from Mac OS X's Terminal without logging in (HP-UX doesn't have Bash by default).

The only downside right now has that it's not immediately obvious which system I'm browsing from Finder without Command-Clicking the icon in the Finder title bar or using the "Path" button in the Toolbar. But this will be fixed in Leopard as the new Finder has an option to display a full path listing (I've seen it in a screenshot).