This resonates with me (though is terse on proposed solutions). As an example of a very effective UI, I use vim with multiple buffers, ctrl-p and ctags in a largish c/c++ project. It lets me fly around the code effortlessly. My colleagues are pointing and clicking through tabs in sublime text. Sure sublime is probably faster to learn, but it certainly has a lower upper bound on performance.

I would love to see the keyboard used more in modern interfaces, the discrete nature of keys can make for a crisp experience compared with the finely quantized continuous space that is the domain of the mouse. Think of problems like hunting for the right place to grab and divide a window border, key combinations could get you the same result without the hunt.