Hello,
I would rather suggest keyboard shortcuts like ALT+F10 followed by a keypress of the first letter of the indicator, similar to navigating through the menubar of an application as you do as a poweruser. For instance ALT+F10 followed by N would set focus on the network manager indicator. For multiple indicators beginning with the same letter, one should be able to focus the right one by pressing the key again till you have it. The default set of indicators should be focused first by the corresponding keypress.
Regards,
Benjamin Tegge