> Bring up Finder: ⌘␣ "finder" ⏎
I had a finder window open still on another workspace. Doing this still does not give you a new finder window. You then have to press cmd+n...
> Bring up Activity Monitor: ⌘␣ "am" ⏎
If I wait a second before pressing enter, spotlight decides that instead of Activity Monitor, Dropbox.app is now the top hit for this query.