The problem wasn't that the Plan 9 guys opposed commercialization, quite the contrary, the problem was that AT&T never let the system become open source. For some time it wasn't even available outside universities. That killed it.
Yes, acme doesn't have keyboard shortcuts, I use it every day.
>the problem was that AT&T never let the system become open source.
The whole thing except the fonts was put under a very liberal open-source licence 10 or 12 or so years ago. (By then it was owned by Bellcore or Lucent, not AT&T.) Before then there were severe restrictions; is your opinion that by time the severe restrictions were lifted, it was too late because Linux had already become entrenched?
Yes, acme doesn't have keyboard shortcuts, I use it every day.