Everyone has different preferences for keyboards.
My observation is that people generally prefer the style and feel of keyboard they learned to type with. Personally, I learned to type using a manual typewriter (yeah, I'm old). As you might suspect, manual typewriters required a lot of "keyboard banging"! Later, I moved on to IBM Selectrics, programming with keypunch machines (said I was old!), and years of systems programming using IBM 3270 keyboards. My first two computers were real IBM PC's and came with IBM mechanical keyboards (wish I had kept them). All these keyboards were mechanical keyboards - usually a spring under every key - and like typewriters, required a lot of keyboard banging. My last mechanical keyboard came with a 1999 Dell, and I purchased a second mechanical keyboard from Dell a few years later.
However, mechanical keyboards have all but disappeared; there are some out there but they cost a fortune. My next keyboard was a membrane keyboard, which to an old keyboard banger like me, was mush. So I purchased a "better" membrane keyboard which was just as mushy. I eventually decided to change my typing habits and purchased an Enermax Aurora keyboard which has a style similar to many notebook keyboards except that its scissors technology provides more tactile feedback than notebook keyboards do.
However, if you learned to type with a notebook keyboard (or developed typing habits using one), you'd probably be aghast at having to type with a mechanical keyboard and probably dislike membrane keyboards too. Yet those who primarily learned typing using membrane keyboards don't find them mushy at all while notebook and mechanical keyboards feel terrible to them.
My point is: you have differing keyboard preferences than others do. You became accustomed to your Dell Inspiron and it's hard to find another keyboard that measures up to it. (Even today, I could type this verbose post in half the time using an IBM 3278 keyboard, though somewhere I'd have to convert EBCDIC to ASCII.)
Like you, I experimented with numerous keyboards. I keep a decent membrane keyboard in the closet for backup purposes, but finding a keyboard which "feels right" is pretty much trial and error, albeit expensive. Most of all, other's ratings of a keyboard's "feel" are not helpful at all as the raters have their own preferences!
Good luck though!
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