If you're trying to examine what's at your current position, you can use the 'd' key directly without keyboard/examine mode, but if you're clicking around with the mouse anyway, examine mode is going to be slower--could you explain what you're trying to do with it? (just to look at your own position?)
One reason is that examine moves the cursor automatically. The other is that it was easier to divide the input into two modes in order make some internal assumptions regarding input intent, of which there are many.