Re. Using the hotkeys to switch tools:
The main idea here is that we will do this by default in the Industry Compatible keymap. Most other DCC apps work this way, and it can become quite fast when the common hotkeys are bound to switching the tools. Most large, big budget pro animation feature films were produced with tools working like this, so it’s not prohibitive to being productive or creating top quality results.
One of the main things that make them slower currently is the fact that switching between them is slower.
In any case, the alternate keymap will work this way, and there could be an option for the default keymap to work this way too.