everything before 1:50 has already been done in
opera. Past that is a great idea on how to improve end-user
experience.

What i really want to see is people develop a sort of "drag-and-drop"
interface for blank tabs. Allowing you to customize what you want in
blank tabs. Sorta like how google.com/ig works but with 3rd party
extensions

This isn't a bad idea. But, as Mr. Leonard has already stated, it would need to default to the search box on the page for it to be really useful. The problem there is that I have about a 50/50 split of the usage of a new tab. About half the time it is to do a search, but the other half is to open up another web page. So if it defaults to the search box that appears, 50% of the time it's going to be annoying. I think what needs to happen is a major restructuring of the way we think about what goes in a new tab. It could be based on typical user behaviour, it could be tailored to each user... I don't know. It's a tricky thing, yes.

The one thing I've started doing (and this is slightly off-topic) is changing my home page in every browser that I use to about:blank. I have yet to think of a page that I can open my browsers to that is what I want, 90% of the time.

I have to say that Google Chrome has a really good implementation of this kind if thing. I like your context based stuff though.

google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=95451&hl=en

I agree with Rupert. Context based actions could be placed above search on the sidebar (given that you can search through the awesome bar anyway).

This could also work seamlessly together with the kind of functionality provided by the Ubiquity add-on. I think Microsoft is trying something like this with IE8's "accelerators".

Other good ideas which could be acquired from Google Chrome are the integration between the Search box and the Awesome bar.

This is really nothing new is it?
- When opening a new tab, type g search and firefox googles.
- Mixing the results of awsomebar with google is done by CyberSearch add-on. ( @Jose Saenz )
- And the add-on NewTabUrl can display a completely own Website when opening a new tab.
I'm using these 3 things all day.
Really nice would be hovering an andress enables the ability to open a map. But that schould be done by the webdesigner.
To read multiple websites in a row, just put them together in a bookmark folder and open them in tabs.
There are some add-ons that display frequently visited webpages when opening a new tab.
So... Zero Cost? Just putting add-ons into the browser and confusing users?

I also do:
- select text
- copy
- open tab
- switch to google bar (pressing "TAB")
- paste
- enter
- click result

.... that's WAY too many steps.

What could be nice if you can have you're Personas theme like background in the search window.