I don't know, I think it has more to do with design v.s. usability. From a pure design point of view, these "crap" keyboards are actually better and more aesthetically pleasing ... From a usability point of view ... well ...
It's the same with the reflecting glare screens and shiny blingbling covers so many laptops sport these days ...
By the way, at work I use a "standalone" thinkpad keyboard (
this one), they have an enlarged ESC key, moves the INS key to the left, and enlarged the DEL key.
This is probably the only deviation from the standard US-international layout that I really like.