the QWERTY layout was designed to SLOW down typists of the day,
Just so you know, that's a myth.
I decided to investigate the myth. I created a simple script to output letter frequencies for large pieces of text and this is what I obtained for the book "War and Peace," by Tolstoy:
E: 315232, T: 226406, A: 205807, O: 192879
N: 184174, I: 174282, H: 167404, S: 162894
R: 148428, D: 118289, L: 96527, U: 65433
M: 61646, C: 61624, W: 59207, F: 54896
G: 51326, Y: 46266, P: 45533, B: 34659
V: 27086, K: 20431, X: 4384, J: 2574
Z: 2387, Q: 2330
Most high frequency letters: E, T, A, O, N, I, H, S don't fall on the home row of the QWERTY layout. Whereas all these letters belong in the home row of the Dvorak layout.
Is there valid reason why low frequency letters like K and J are in the home row of QWERTY other than to slow down typing?