Here's my big, improved version of Colemak. It is designed with no restrictions at all; shortcuts and QWERTY positions do not matter.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ]

. w c g v j l u y k / = \

a r s t d h n e i o ;

' - b p q f m , x z

This layout gets rid of the few problems that Colemak has. It makes better use of the (QWERTY) N position, and puts something rarer in the B position. It also moves more common punctuation onto the home row, and gets C out of that pit in the bottom. Same finger is increased, but by less than a tenth of the total. (0.37% compared to 0.34%)

I set out to design a 1 handed layout, with essentially the same values as Colemak. I made some modifications to my scoring program, and realized that making a one handed layout would be much easier. Same hand didn't matter; you were using the same hand the whole time no matter what. Row changing along the same hand could be simplified to just row changing. An extra cost for moving to the center on the same hand could be eliminated, and instead just increase the cost of every position off to the side. The only things it REALLY has to deal with are same finger and travel distance. It still will be affected by home row jumping; if there is a digraph, it will put both letters of the digraph on the same row. That doesn't affect things a whole lot.

Here is the left-handed keyboard:

_ - q ' j f p _

k u g o h r w b

y i A E S T n m

v x z , c l d .

This layout, although of course vastly different from Colemak, is based on the same principles. It keeps keyboard shortcuts easy to hit, puts the most common keys on the home row, and reduces same finger. Even so, the same finger is monstrously high.