> I've always thought it was a bit odd that for touchscreen phones we just decided to grab the near exact keyboard layout we use with physical keyboards, and just stick them on a tiny touchscreen
This happens with technology all the time. When the printing press was invented the first books were designed to look like their handwritten counterparts. Similarly, when electronic maps happened they were just like paper maps with fixed scales ("zoom levels"), north up, top down etc. It takes a while for people to realise the potential of newer technology for some reason.
Keyboards are a funny one, though. People don't learn to type any more. In fact, people don't really learn to do anything with computers. Millions of people interact with computers every day but have never really learnt to use them effectively, and this goes for both hardware and software. If you want to be a lorry driver, you need a driver's licence. But people get employed all the time to work on computers and nobody ever asks "can you type?" or "can you produce typeset documents to basic quality standards?" Walk into any office in the world and you'll see hunt-and-peck typing and untrained, misuse of common software like MS Word.
The problem is interfaces like a keyboard and MS Word do allow you to do something without any training at all. There would be huge resistance to having a "better" keyboard that required users to learn how to use it. People have been conditioned to expect no training.
A big driver in the trend towards no training is that the powerful players in tech (ad companies) have an interest in getting as wide a userbase as possible. The manufacturer of a locomotive or MRI machine does not care about this and it's fine and expected to need training to operate those machines. I wouldn't expect keyboards, especially those on a phone, to move to anything that requires training any time soon.