I like the new UI as well. There's always a learning curve, but after using it for months I haven't found any reason to switch back.

ctrl+ctrl is "run anything" (I tend to use ctrl+alt+r for the different but similar run menu instead).

I think what you want is "Actions" - which is default to "shift shift" and then click on a tab, or (ctrl/cmd)+shift+a to jump directly to that tab.