Ability to quickly filter and select item from dropdownlist by typing the first few characters of possible dropdown options and having the matched item be the selected item. This is already a normal function of regular dropdowns, and would make keyboard manipulation much faster.
The Kendo UI dropdownlist supports keyboard for search in its items in the same way as the regular html element. I verified it in the following sample: http://dojo.telerik.com/oxaWA Try using the keyboard to focus the dropdowns and type the first two letters of a specific item to have it selected in the dropdown. Let me know if I am missing something.