In case anyone is interested, I got Ultra Keyboard, and yes it does have shortcuts (they call it Replacement). This is a _very_ impressive product. Lots of customizability and features. Unfortunately, in the first hour of working with it, there were quite few Force Closes. But, in spite of that downside, I plan to move from SlideIT to Ultra in the hopes that the devs will get the FCs sorted out.
Now, if this program could get the 'next word prediction' that Swift Key has, so that the keyboard practically writes your sentence for you, we'll able to understand the true meaning of "delegation" (g).