[jsolson]

With respect to #2 -- "more quickly" could be a bit much, but there are quite a few combination locks (of the sort commonly found on cheap-ass high-school lockers) wherein getting within 2-3 digits of each digit in the combination is sufficient to open them.

Given that, I could easily see how "feeling" that you'd hit the right digit (give or take) might be faster than focussing on visually actually hitting the right digits.

[notatoad]

when i was in high school, the school issued old master combination padlocks to everybody and they had a very obvious audible and tactile "thunk" when the dial hit the right number, if you pulled down on them the right amount while spinning the dial.

and yes, it actually was quicker to open them by feel than by looking at the numbers on the dial.