Unless you're touch-typing your function keys, you certainly do look there.
I don't want a "second display"; I want dynamic, context-aware buttons. Focusing on the fact that it's "another display" misses all the benefits of it not being static hardware buttons.
The buttons on your keyboard are already context aware. All this does is make them difficult/impossible to touch type (I touch type my F-keys), forces me to look away from my display to perform operations, and removes the good tactile feedback you get from a keypress.
"Context-aware" as in the applications you use will decide what to do with the inputs, I guess, sure. The applications you use being able to create their own inputs is an entirely different thing and what I meant by "context-aware".
I agree, though, that the lack of feedback was a mistake.
I don't want a "second display"; I want dynamic, context-aware buttons. Focusing on the fact that it's "another display" misses all the benefits of it not being static hardware buttons.