I don't believe it ever was the holy grail of touch typist. First, it was incredibly loud, and most people complained about it. The key travel distance was mostly cited as a con, not a pro. And only then the reliablity issues started to arise. But it didn't take 2018. This article (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15496745) made it to the top of HN in Oct 2017, but people had already been complaining for months (See this article from February https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/some-2016-macbook-pro-o...).