[dao-]

> I can tell you my interactions with FF's URL bar are now always: click once, type, realize I just deleted everything, furiously ESC ESC ESC, curse, click once, twice, wrong double click, wait to be able to single click, deep breath, curse, click again.

This doesn't add up. After "furiously ESC ESC ESC, curse, click once" you would already have put the cursor.

[sergiosgc]

Ah, ok, that makes the feature useful now. </sarcasm>

[recursive]

That's not the thing that makes the feature useful. The thing that makes it useful is that it makes it easier to do common tasks.

[ubercow13]

It makes the feature useful if you only use your web browser. If you use a variety of applications on your computer in combination with each other, it’s also useful that they follow certain consistent UI design patterns so you don’t have to learn and remember how each different application works. That’s part of what makes PCs so much more powerful than the sum of the individual programs you run on them.