There is pretty overwhelming evidence that using modifier keys is an advantage in this sort of thing. Pretty much every other language - possibly all of them - in common use make heavy use of modifier keys in describing what a computer should be doing. SQL is pretty much the dying breath of the attempts to do without them because the syntax is so bad in practice. Even configuration files typically make use of modifier keys.

Losing the explicit link between a function and its arguments is a big deal. Note that even the relational algebra model behind SQL doesn't try to make that sort of silly trade off.