1. Cursor keys do not move the selection to the beginning or end of the list when they are in the first/last column/row. Mc and nautilus (3.4, at least) make this operation more convenient. The following function implements the logic of keyboard nav in nautilus: http://git.gnome.org/browse/nautilus/tree/libnautilus-private/nautilus-icon-container.c?h=gnome-3-4#n3602 2. In compact mode, if the view width < column width, navigation with left/right cursor keys fails. 3. A (related?) issue is a page-up/down key. The page size seems to be calculated incorrectly in the icon view. In the compact view page-up/down move the selection to the top/bottom of the column (preferably they should scroll the whole window left/right).
Reopen if still reproducible, or better create a new bug.