I understand that there is an easy shortcut to get to the terminal, yet, being a Far Manager power user, I think it is the synergy between the panes and the command line is what leads to the productivity gain over the plain shell.
The functional minimum for the command line :
- Shortcut to copy the currently select item to the command line
- Shortcut to copy current path to the command line
- Browse history of the previously executed commands and either execute or to copy to the command line (with modifier)