Another thing you can do to improve speed is learn the keybindings for readline. They are the same keybindings as emacs, and lots of other things use readline too like python shell, sqlite, etc. A very useful set of keys to have in your muscle memory. See the readline manual: http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/readline/rluserman.html#SEC3
This won't work for some standard stuff that OS X ships with, for instance Python (when started as a command-line interpreter). That's because .inputrc is read by the GNU readline utilities, and Apple links with the BSD equivalent.
To make this work for Python:
Add a file called .editrc with the following content:
bind -v
Add a file called .pythonrc with the following lines:
import rlcompleter
import readline
Add a line to your .bashrc which makes Python run .pythonrc when it starts interactively:
