* Seems to me that a lot of the keyboard shortcuts are chords or require hitting an arrow key, sometimes even both. Example: VS Code's default mapping for vertical split is cmd+backslash, but Zed requires cmd+k -> arrow key.
* The project panel (file tree) doesn't support hjkl for navigation. The website says Vim mode is still under construction, but in my mind that applies to actual buffer editing, not general UI interactions. My impression is that today most editors, hell even a lot of websites, support hjkl or similar for navigation in cases where it doesn't conflict with anything else.
My perspective is that "keyboard-focused" implies "ergonomic shortcuts and UI navigation without leaving the home row". If I'm gonna move my hand from the home row to reach the arrow keys, I might as well just reach for the mouse and get 10x the possible interactions. Anecdotally, I tested myself just now and I'm pretty sure it takes me more time to "find my footing" when I move my fingers to the arrow keys than it does to just grab a mouse and click something.
This might be wrong expectations on my end, but my hope is that Zed can bring the powerful navigation of Doom Emacs/Spacemacs minus the bugginess and terrible performance of Emacs. Whenever the devs talked about Zed, I just imagined VSpaceCode without the jank that comes when you override 90% of an editor's default bindings. What I'm seeing from an hour of usage doesn't feel that much more powerful than VS Code in terms of keyboard navigation (kudos on the snappy performance though, it really is night and day). I'm aware this is an early beta, I just hope you folks agree and are going to push more in this direction.