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What happens if you don't set keymap "gg", "G", etc? Would they not work, or...? (Currently not on a *nix machine to be able to test it out, or else I wouldn't ask such a simple question :P)

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"G" works with a number for recalling shell history. For example, "4G" recalls the fourth command in the shell history. However, "G" alone without a number does not work as it does in vi (jump to last line). I suppose that was the desired functionality.

It makes sense for "gg" to be absent, as it is not a vi command. It is a "vimism". The typical vi command for moving to the first line is "1G".

My guess is, that you redefine them to mean the semantically same in a new domain. What I mean is that gg and G lets you go to the top of the file and to the bottom of the file, right? But on the command-line, what is the top of your file? And what is the bottom?

I can only speak for the Emacs capabilities of readline: all commands which would usually change the line (previous/next-line, beginning/end-of-buffer) will use the history as the buffer. All of them preserve the line you are currently typing, which will be the end of the buffer.

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