> It's the worst kind of UI modality because it does different things depending on whether you've reached the beginning of the form.

I've never seen backspace act differently once I'd deleted everything. If a form field has focus -- even an empty form field -- backspace doesn't make me lose the page.

(On the other hand, I started this morning hating Chrome for getting rid of the functionality I've used since last century, but I'm now coming to accept it.)