Ok, I get it now: you are all ticked off because you think my idea would cost screen real estate.
It wouldn't. You have two .?123 keys now; if one of them called up a third keyboard that was programmable, you'd lose no space.
Using one of the keys that way could even be an option in Settings - which would mean no change at all for those who don't need other keys.
In fact, that's probably the best way to do it - add optional keyboards in Settings.