I have one of these in front of me now (been working on it for a little over a week, should have waited, d'oh!) and the virtual escape doesn't seem that big a deal. Even if my finger isn't quite on virtual key pretty much at all, but is in the middle of where the real escape key would be, it triggers "ESC".
Go ahead and return it. Apple's pretty good about returns/exchanges after new product releases. I think you have 14 days from purchase to make an exchange, so hop on it if you really like the new systems.
Sadly, don't think I can. It's the company's laptop, we put the order in after WWDC assuming it'd be a few months longer before updates, and for various reasons I didn't get to setting this particular one up until recently. We're sadly past the flip date, but honestly I'm pretty happy with it so far.
