McCann: Cross Cut [the future of Nautilus]

Well, but features don't have to be keybound, so the only true statement is that "Sometimes you cannot add a new easy-to-hit keyboard shortcut without removing an existing easy-to-hit keyboard shortcut", which is very true (to the hindrance of many gamers).

At any rate, if both the previous and the new key binding schemes are useful, an option to choose between them can be added.

But that's probably not the case here, where keeping the current behavior and ADDING a search box on the top right and a keybind (Firefox uses Ctrl+K, not sure if it conflicts with something in Nautilus) seems by far the most reasonable course of action.