For example: In InDesign, to place a linked file it's command + D; in Illustrator it's command + shift + P.... why do Adobe products all have different basic keyboard commands?

Indesign is smart and lets you choose shortcuts to match Photoshop in settings. Please touch base with their team. I had the mapping file for Illustrator but never got any traction from the Illustrator team. I agree not all users will want it but not having standards is the reason it is so challenging to have users adopt more than one Adobe product. Users would rather hack something together in Photoshop instead of learning Illustrator. Anytime you need a periodic table to show the keyboard mappings is a sign that usability is too complicated.

Speaking of capitalizing text, one can assign a custom hotkey to it with Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts (I did that).
Another thing is that InDesign’s default hotkey for that (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + K) in Illustrator opens Color Settings dialog, and a LOT of users will get upset if this default hotkey they’ve been using for many years will change just to conform another application. Adobe had made mistakes like these before and they never welcomed when it comes to professionals.

There are methods to deal with it though.
1. Learn. Usually the mind is capable to switch between modalities just fine, and switch between different keyboard schemes, when dealing with them often.
2. Customize. While it’s true different apps (not only Adobe) allow different depths of the allowed customizations (and Ai’s one specifically sucks a lot), there is still a gap one can close themselves.
3. Developers offer to switch premade keyboards schemes. CorelDRAW allows to quickly toggle keys 'like in Ai', InDesign allows to quickly choose hotkeys 'like in Ai or Ps'... hey, it looks like other apps try to mimic Ai, interesting, right?
But hotkey customization is dangerous. When these break and get lost (for different reasons), it's not that convenient to restore them (especially if you forgot to backup), these don’t stick to cloud, and the default set becomes irritating more it used to before you modified it.

Anyway — consistency for consistency’s sake is a trap. The apps only look similar, but they deal with different medias, formats, offer different tools, modes, and have different history. Every play with defaults leads to micro insults amongst users.

So instead of 'make them similar!' please try to point out cases that CAN’T be solve with individual customization. That is something that can be addressed by the team, unlike 'I am no familiar with the app' — which is up to the end user to master.

Finally, I can just imagine a war that can happen between users, when they start to decide WHICH app should be a master one to copy the hotkeys from. Ugh!

I second this. Learning Adobe's apps is challenging because you often need to figure out how to do the same thing multiple times across different applications.

Keeping shortcuts consistent between applications is a good idea in theory, but in implementation…

It would probably work best if the users were given the option to choose which app they wanted the shortcuts synchronized across all programs from.

For example a person who mainly uses InDesign would want the InDesign shortcuts applied universally, but someone who uses mostly Photoshop would want all the shortcuts to match Photoshop's shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcut for "Find/Replace" like InDesign.

ALSO, Keeping the shortcuts consistent among the various apps.

Time-saver.

Also -- looked into creating an Action in Ai ... over 9000% useless since you can't assign a shortcut other than a friggen function key.

Make Ai, Id, & Ps more consistent and more customizable. Especially concerning shortcuts and panel behavior.

* Why can I assign shortcuts to alignment tools in ID and Photoshop, but not AI?
* Why can I drag the hidden tools off onto their own mini panels in AI, but not PS or ID?
* And WHY, for the love of all that is Holy, in PS if I try to map Shift+Alt+E to Align Center (because this is how I have it in ID), PS tells me I HAVE to use Ctrl??? I don't WANT to use Ctrl -- I want it EXACTLY AS I HAVE IT IN ID!

Most designers work in ALL THREE of these programs; it really sucks that we have to fight with garbage, inconsistent interface choices all the time. It's as though Adobe care as little as Microsoft do about user experience...