If it's a key you use frequently, and no longer have the other option, muscle memory isn't that hard to retrain.

You're wrong. Muscle memory is very hard to retrain. To buy laptop with esc button is much more easy. It will be just not MacBook Pro, but it's their problems.

You're wrong? Muscle memory is not that hard to retrain. I had to do it when I first started using a Mac, on which most of the non-qwerty keys (and some of the qwerty ones too) are in a different location to the standard IBM layout.