The wrist support on the Kensington does look weird and uncomfortable but it is quite nice, I left it in the box when I first got it but found the trackball very awkward to use so I gave it a go. That hump sits in the natural contour your hand forms when using the trackball. Without the wrist pad you have to keep your arm floating or end up with your hand tilted backwards all the time which bothers my wrist quickly. Keeping your arm floating is not bad for occasional use and is what I do when I just need to move the cursor a bit but when I am doing cursor heavy work I am quite glad to have that wrist support.

The more common type of trackball you see these days I find awkward and terrible for fine control with the small trackballs they have.

You can get external trackpoint keyboards, just unlikely to find ones with mechanical switches. Lenovo makes a few different USB and wireless keyboards with trackpoints.