[john.gersh]

I think bartzumbari is referring not to the cmd-1 open-style-inspector, but to the Inspect Style item in the triangle-pulldown on a specific tool. The difference is that the first refers to the currently selected object's style, the second to the currently selected tool's style settings. It's the style of what you're about to draw.

Since the item is not in a labeled menubar menu, you can't assign it a custom shortcut in the Keyboard preference pane.

On bartzumbari's last point, opening a palette without a specific user command is generally a bad thing. If you're screen space is so constrained that you don't have the inspectors open already (if there's room, why not?), then opening one automatically is very likely to obscure something in the diagram. If you didn't want to look at the current style details just then, the palette gets in the way.