My girlfriend thinks the same thing, although she explained it as "clockwise", which she said means that "J is on the left side of the clock" and "K is on the right side of the clock". :)

The current implementation is compatible with "vi", a unix editor used by many programmers (in the past?).

I don't think it is wise to swap them. That would probably upset the existing user base. Perhaps this can be prevented by making the behavior configurable.

Personally, I'd love a shortcut to duplicate tasks (could not find that).

You're totally right. Configurable is the way to go, as it would confuse people who've conditioned themselves to use the current shortcuts.

vi is used by many programmers "In the past?" **ahem**. Definitely not "in the past", although there is a splinter block of satan-worshippers who use its unholy counterpart, emacs.

Anyway, along those lines, 'H' and 'L' need to be mapped to 'left' and 'right' tabs, it drives me crazy to have to use the arrow keys.

Also, keyboard shortcuts should be accessible with a keystroke (? in gmail works fine).

I also agree about letting people modify their own keystrokes.

Doesn't it currently behave like Gmail as is?

It behaves exactly like Gmail already. J does "down one line" and K does "up one line". This is the conventional use of J and K which, as others have pointed out, is the same as in other software, notably the "vi" text editor.

I'd rather use the up and down arrows.