[jdlegg]

I think the use cases you are describing are accomplished as follows:

1. Starting at the "root" directory. You can control what the finder window initially opens with on the General pane of the Finder Preferences. By default it should be your home folder (/Users/name).

2. Tracking your location. It sounds like you're not using the Path Bar. I believe it's disabled by default. Try View -> Show Path Bar. This presents your current location (in all view types) at the bottom. It also allows for navigational "jumps" to parent locations.

If you have OS X Lion you can open your Finder location in Terminal by enabling a Service in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts. It's called "New Terminal at Folder" or "New Terminal Tab at Folder." See this Stack Overflow answer for more details: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/420456/open-terminal-here...