Let me introduce you to Mr. Charles MacKay, author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Published in 1852. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.

From what I've heard, QWERTY wasn't designed to slow typists down, but rather to try to stop commonly adjacent letters being adjacent on the keyboard.

I think a glance at the top row is enough to disprove that -- qw/wq and yu/uy are the only uncommon two-letter combos, while extremely common ones like we, er/re, rt/tr, io/oi, and ty are present. There are even several common three letter combinations -- wer, tre, ert, rty, and poi. If you expand to include vertically adjacent keys, you'll find even more.

I know that was a joke, but even with the tax, it'd be cheaper to shop online.

I've always thought it'd be neat to turn the Zork series into a top-down Zelda style game.