I’m thinking of switching my thumb keys (currently space and enter and two of them go to a symbols layer) to shift. I find that shift makes me anxious when typing because i have to partially leave the home row, and as a result my pinky placement when typing is bad, my ring finger tends to take over and my pinky has become a mod presser and not a typing finger.
I have tried to overload the home row keys as modifiers but that is a huge mistake as it causes misfires or takes TOO LONG to aviate, there is no middle ground with that one.
I use it for shift, and I like it so much more, because pinky would be overworked otherwise. However I use Flactyl and it has a ton of thumb keys, so your milage may vary if you do not have enough keys.