The start button + app name equivalent is Cmd-Space, which opens the spotlight bar in the upper right had corner. I launch Chrome with Cmd-Space-c-h-enter.
Sometimes I know exactly what app I wanted to launch, I could envision its app logo, the exact look of the app itself, but I would have a hard time remembering what the app is called. Is it called digital something or picture something then after some agonizing minutes trying to fuzzy match the app name in Spotlight I'll have to dig through the application folder and find the app I was looking is called ImageCapture. Anyone else have this problem?
use a gesture to bring up launchpad?
I have this problem all the time - the best solution I've found is to add a keyboard shortcut to LaunchPad.
I find quicksilver to be even faster. On my setup I have all my most frequently used applications bound to systemwide hotkeys that I turned off in the keyboard preference pane. I don't even have to think about switching applications muscle memory makes it automatic.
Yeah, "search to launch" using Spotlight (and before that, Quicksilver) existed in OSX before Windows (v7 I believe) added it.