I actually taught myself an "optimized" keyboard layout called QGMLWY[1] and got up to my normal typing speed. I had to go back to qwerty though because it was too much overhead to get the layout on every device I use. I definitely noticed an improvement in ergonomics.

My current project is building an Atreus keyboard[2] which will have the QGMLWY layout in hardware, hopefully bypassing all the compatibility issues.

[1] http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization [2] https://github.com/technomancy/atreus