[mhd]

I prefer to have it as an additional ctrl, who needs caps anyway? And while you're at it, use the Windows keys, too (if you have 'em). Dividing keyboard shortcuts between Control, Alt, Meta (and maybe Hyper) is much nicer…

Then install smex[1] and searching for commands in the long form is much faster, so you don't need to have that many shortcuts in the first place.

And the fastest and easiest key press is the one you don't have to do: Learn to use keyboard macros, you won't regret it.

[1] http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Smex