Wow, this is super cool. First of all, I misunderstood about the Command + ~. Now I realize that it is default enabled and it's a great shortcut that I'm using more and more by the hour! As for the tab switching, Command + ~ does not work for that, but I followed your directions, goobimama, and modified the shortcut keys like you did. Very logical and pretty quick.
Thanks to all of you for the help! Much appreciated.