One thing I really miss from Inbox is the ability to archive the currently highlighted message with the archive shortcut without having to select it first. Does anyone know a way to get this in gmail?
I'm not sure what you mean by your use of "survive" here - are you referring to the feature where you could pin certain emails and then "sweep" the rest into archive with one click?
Ok cool. So the best way to do this is that I have found is to use the vertical spit view (selected using the icon to the left of the settings gear icon, in the upper right of the gmail window).
This allows you to use the keyboard ('j'/'k') to navigate through the list of emails, and just hit 'e' on the ones you want to archive. Downside is, the content of the email still loads in the preview pane.
If you don't want emails to automatically be marked as "read" when you select them, you can go to the settings gear, "Inbox" tab, and change the length of time a message is displayed in the preview pane before being marked read to "never".