Mechanical Keyboards

What switches do people use now?

The "now" part I'm not sure about because I'm out of the hobby for some years. The "people" part depends on who we are talking about. Maybe Cherry is still popular in boards you can buy in shops or on big online stores, I don't know. But in my time, Cherry was far from a popular choice to put in custom keyboards. Almost all switches used were cherry style switches, meaning they fit the same keycaps, are roughly of the same size, fit in the same pcb's, etc. But people usually get them from other companies, eg Kailh, Gateron, etc. There is just more choice in terms of materials, colours, bump profile, smoothness, springs, click mechanism, you name it. It was also common to combine switches, like using the top of one switch with the bottom of another or swap stems. Other brands were perceived to be higher quality. Cherrys were known for being scratchy instead of smooth, having a weak tactile bump, clicky variations being rattly instead of crisp as well as lacking in some other areas such as stem wobble and sound. For example, I'm typing right now on Gateron Ink Black v2 switches lubed with Tribosys 3204, filmed with Kebo films and springs swapped for bag lubed Tx L 16mm 62gr springs. On the other hand, there is a smaller group of people that is all about vintage Cherry switches, desoldering them from old boards to use them in new builds. The sheath on the stem switches you saw are probably some sort of box switches (I think it's supposed to reduce stem wobble and thus smoothness in practice).