Speaking as a user, not a mod developer:

 

Lots of mods (Thaumcraft, Ars Magica, MPS,...) register hotkeys for 'context' senstive actions: Thaumcraft registers a hotkey (F) that cycles the active focus of the wand the user currently wields. Archimedes Ships navigation hotkeys only make sense if the user is currently FLYING an achimedes ship.

 

The current method of registering hotkeys seems to be the first, or last, to register a hotkey is the only mod served, and it shows an a conflict in the keybinding UI.

 

If Forge offered an API that allows multiple mods to register hotkeys that are context sensitive, when the keys were pressed forge could call each of the mods to decide if it wanted to handle the hotkey or not.

 

Allowing users to use a single hotkey to support actions from multiple mods.

So, in my case, I would be able to use "F" to ascend my archimedes ship when mounted, "F" to cycle my thaumcraft wand focus when my wand was selected, "F" to cycle my Ars Magica spell when my Ars Magica spell book was selected, and "F" to trigger an action on my MPS armor, when that was active.

 

Of course, all the listed mod authors would have to adopt the new API.

 

Keybindings (or hotkeys if you want to call it that) have been rewritten in 1.7, it's now event based.

The usual, up to the modder to implement if they want to.

Implying that, come 1.7, multiple mods WILL be able to share a single keybind?

Now theres a reason to upgrade sooner than later.

Depends if coded properly.