They probably weren't, huh... in front of computers when it was more of a thing.

It sure is a generational thing, I have the same problem with Emacs. But not with Vim.

Right, but other file managers didn't adopt them. Do you use Norton Commander keyboard shortcuts with Nautilus, Dolphin, Thunar, Windows Explorer, Finder, etc? Did anything else adopt most of them? Because if you're only appealing to those who used Norton Commander, that's not a big user base. Using Windows Explorer keyboard shortcuts, instead, would give you a vastly larger audience.

None of those things existed when either program was written though, except maybe a very early Finder.

Of course not, they would have had to "adopt" NC's shortcuts (as I said). Apparently, NC wasn't popular enough, for others to want to imitate.