So will have "Authors" as first element of the list and "Text" near the bottom?
nha... i'm more for a list sorted by field usage frequency.

Giuseppe, for a human being (and also for computers) it's easier to find an element when the list is sorted alphabetically ;-)

The frequency of filed types depends on the application you're writing.
Of couse some programmers are already used to that unsorted list, but some others don't: that's IdeaJam can be helpful to see how many people agree or not.

I'm not so worried on the sort order, but I would like to be able to select an entry in the list by pressing the relevant key, as you can with most lists.

Not a terrible idea but also not a big enough problem to be worth "solving". With the advent of @ThisName and @ThisValue, I find even less need to create fields from scratch as opposed to copying and pasting an example field and changing the name, etc. If you are creating, say, several dozen computed number fields, there is almost certainly a more efficient way using clever field naming along with the aforementioned @ThisName/@ThisValue, such that each field formula is exactly the same, with no need to tweek it after each paste.

I think it would be another option to select different type of fields from a palette as you do in VB.

Pulling field type by frequency usage is more efficient. But not a problem worth solving imho.

For me - and I do consider myself a human being - it is easier to find an element, if the most frequently used are on top. You are right in that this might depend on the type of application to some degree, but e.g. Color, Timezone, Formula and Password fields never made it to the top for me, yet.