For me, “hunt and peck” is a disaster because of poor hand eye coordination. Being male, typing wasn’t an option in high school (in the old days). I had one try cut short by a change in duty station but did manage to get a B in a college course later. That was on an IBM Selectric. I still couldn’t manage more than a page or two because of worrying about mistakes. When I got a PC, learning to touch type was the first really useful thing I did with it.
I took typing courses twice before I had access to a word processor. Being able to “let go” and not worry about mistakes, let me type not just faster, but in the end, better.
There is no point in arguing with Fern. When proven wrong he just changes the subject. His posts are so dumb they don’t need to be countered.