As for typing in the location bar, there is a kind of autocomplete/tab completion mode which is really useful. The behaviour seems to have changed in more recent versions, I think the tab key doesn't work now, as it's a UI control to move focus. I prefer the shell style tab completion, but nonetheless it's a useful feature.

Which reminds me that navigating around nautilus with the keyboard is really a bit of a pain. To be able to do this easily would really help. I noticed in Mint's nautilus the last time I tried it arrow keys would let me move back and forth between the sidebar and the file lists, it may not be the right key to do it - but makes using the file manager much easier.