Hi Meridiansquid,
I was sorry to read about your experiences - I think you have been badly let down with that keyboard. It is not at all unreasonable to expect that a premium product from a manufacturer like that would serve you reliably and well for a decent period, and certainly not be ‘unrepairable.’
Of course it doesn’t mean that every single Asus product is terrible, but the dead end you reached understandably leads to a very sour taste, and one I have experienced myself with Logitech products.
Like you, I wanted a decent quality long-term-use keyboard for gaming and work, and on the strength of decent reviews I opted for the Logitech G513 Carbon. It was not as expensive as the Claymore, but still expensive for “just” a keyboard at about GBP 200 when I got it. All was fine at first, but after 18 months it was scrap - multiple keys had lost some or all of their surface covering, and many of them either didn’t work when pressed, or activated multiple times at the lightest touch, all randomly and unpredictably.
New switches and keycaps are not available from the manufacturer or in the aftermarket, and the local distributor refused to deal with it, quoting: “fair wear and tear.” The ridiculously expensive mouse I had brought from them at the same time suffered a similar failure of the surface and unreliable switches too.
After trying out a lot of expensive replacement keyboards in-person at various computer shops I settled on the Ducky One-3, and I would highly recommend you take a look at their products if you haven’t already settled on something else. Yes it was still pricy, but it gets the basics so, so right that in everyday work or gaming use it is leagues above my old Logitech.
The design and production ethos are all tuned to making it the best keyboard to type on that they possibly can - build quality is bombproof, and the case has internal mechanical and acoustic damping, making it really solid, classy and quiet. There are a few video reviews where they compare the typing sound and feel to other high end mechanical keyboards, and you can really feel and hear the difference.
It uses Cherry keys which are hot swappable with no soldering or disassembly required, and of course this means no issue with replacement keycaps in future either. The standard caps are true doubleshot PBT with a fine texture on the surface, but they don’t pick up oils and go shiny. The USB cable is entirely separate and replaceable too.
Another benefit I hadn’t thought too much about is the lack of software the Ducky comes with. The old Logitech required their hub software on my pc for backlight control and firmware updates, and it wouldn’t play nicely with the other lighting controls I have from Corsair and Gigabyte. A practical and time saving bonus is that the Ducky controls are all on-board via the function keys.
I hope you find something decent, but based on my similar experience, I would definitely recommend you have a look at the Ducky range, to see if there is something that suits.