[troyb]

You can't do this for search shortcuts but it is possible to add shortcuts via bookmarks. You can just type in your shortcut to the keyword field. That way you don't need to look at the shortcuts prefs for that.

Then you can use the status bar icon or context menu to create search shortcuts.

The only time you'll need to look at the preference pane is when you need to alter or remove a shortcut.

For the record, we do have some ideas on how to do this better in the future!