Nautilus Elementary had it right in this department; since it is no longer being maintained, I hope Marlin will be an option soon, and will retain all that was good about Nautilus Elementary, and maybe gain some bulk-rename functionality from Thunar.
While I love keyboard shortcuts, some people assume users always have two hands on the keyboard. Frankly, doing Ctrl+2 all with my left hand is a bit awkward, for me.