Alternative to arrow keys in Google Chrome location bar

It's a bug/miss/whatever, please go here and vote for it:

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=18251 (Issue 18251: Using Tab Key To Browse Address Bar History Broken)

I know its NOT an answer to your question, but I would nevertheless go with it. Try using firefox nightly build, if you're that sort of person. Okay, it won't open as fast as chrome itself, but its much faster than Fx 3.6 and as fast as chrome for all other tasks. As for the address bar, Fx awesome bar stands up to its name, and is really awesome. You can use tabs to navigate, and I rarely have to type a full address. You just type the first few letters, press tabs and you're done. Whats better is that it also has a much better search functionality than most people think it does, and its actually better than chrome. See here: http://home.iitk.ac.in/~ashishag/writings/smartsearch/smartsearch.php