Are you referring to the arrows that signify home/end/page up/page down on the older full size keyboards?
On the laptop keyboard the Fn key is the outer key, followed by ctrl, then alt/option and then command on my full size keyboard it is placed above the delete button and to the left of the "home" button. It's not switched.
Either way, you could replace your Mac keyboard with one of your standard Windows ones and everything will continue to work without issues. So if the keyboard layout is a bother, that is easily fixed. You'll just need to remember to hit the windows key to copy/paste rather than ctrl.
http://superuser.com/questions/46452/weird-symbols-for-key-c...
Seems you are right about home and end having gotten text descriptions.
3years ago this worked in some applications, in others you had to use the old ctrl-a/ctrl-e (which couldn't be combined with shift) or cmd or control-left/right/up/down.
Can't remember the details anymore, but I think I figured I needed at least three different combos for home/end back then.
That said the most annoying thing about Macs is how much I'd love to be able to use one, even at their current price point they seem a good offer to me, - but after three years of trying to either adapt me or the Mac I have given up :-/