Good idea.
Have you tried using "typeahead" (also known as "typedown")?
Switch the focus (as demonstrated by the light blue rectangle surrounding
the focus area) to the contact list. (The focus is often either the folder
list on the left, or the quick filter edit control up above and on the
right.) Then start typing the last name of a contact (or the display name,
if the contact is not a human -- like a company or just an e-mail address).
You should automatically scroll to the first instance of it. If you keep
typing within the typeahead timeout, it will continue to try and match until
the matching fails, and it will settle on the first contact after the end of
the set of contacts that matched the last good match.
This also works in the GAL, when browsing is enabled, and for the GAL at
least is sometimes significantly faster than using the quick filter.
-nh