Was happy to read this, as I've often imagined doing this myself (i.e. thoroughly hashing out commentary on a bunch of nits in a GUI that annoy me and I'm convinced should be better).

I agree that ctrl+L is a weird shortcut in a vacuum, but it's one I've known for 15 years, originally from using browsers. And it always makes me happy that Windows and Gnome (and Nautilus, which isn't the gnome default but is still present) all share it, which is nice for old/power-users.

(but actually, on re-read, the complaint may not be with the shortcut at all, and purely with the "no other way")

There's something in the room (I think it's an elephant), but not mentioned in the post, which is that the current Gnome UI is very Windows 11-like, while screwing up a lot of the details (hover-text, location bar being clickable).

(After using Gnome with 14.04 and 20.04, I had stability issues in 22.04 and am now happily on XFCE; long-term stability ftw)