> Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up.
In macOS, generally:
⌘ Command = App-specific shortcuts. The primary modifier key.
⌃ Control = Global shortcuts. App-specific shortcuts will not generally have Control as the sole modifier.
⌥ Option/Alt = Something to with the keyboard, selection, or secondary modifier for a shortcut. Option+Up/Down is Page Up/Down.
⇧ Shift = Something to with the keyboard, selection, or secondary modifier for a shortcut.
Common shortcuts are way more consistent than in Windows, and you can search for them from the Help menu of any app, and even modify/create shortcuts for any app from System Preferences -> Keyboard.
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> As far as I can tell, there's no non-keyboard way to do it.
Right-click on the folder icon in the title bar, use Columns view, or show the Path Bar from the View menu.
> Likewise, "All My Files" sorts based on... what?
Files in your home folder's hierarchy, that are indexed by Spotlight.
> And when I search for something when I'm in a directory, I expect the search to be restricted to that directory by default. Instead it defaults to My Mac, which makes no sense.
Keyword: defaults. You can change it.
> Is there also no way to get the current path as text? On Windows I can type "C:\Users\My Documents" by hand in Explorer. I don't see an option to do that in Finder.
"Go to Folder", it's under the Go menu.
To copy an item's path name, hold down Option/Alt to modify the "Copy" menu item.
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Most of your complaints are basically "it doesn't do everything the way Windows does it so it's bad" or "I'm furious because I didn't bother to tweak the defaults."