I just read a Slashdot post about the DVORAK keyboard layout. While I'll agree that it probably does improve your typing speed, I don't understand why a programmer would want to use it for that reason.
Unless your job is to crank out tons of code as fast as possible, improving your typing speed won't make you any faster. Most programmers that I know (myself included) aren't I/O bound, they're CPU bound. Just because we can type faster doesn't mean that we'll be able to produce more code, or that the code will be any better.
Not that I have any personal experience with XP, but I think this is probably the same reasoning behind pair programming. And, the common thought that faster typing = more productive programmers is probably why everyone I've talked to balks at pair programming.
