I don't know about a forward delete button but I also don't like the stock keyboard. I use go keyboard from the market.

 

Have you tried using Swype? It has a carat that you can move forward and backward in your text field...

 

The stock Gingerbread keyboard should allow you to highlight and delete specific text anywhere in what you're typing out with a long press of your fingers to move the cursor or highlight text..

That being said, I use Swiftkey X from the market and you can do that or use built in arrow keys to move the cursor around with it.

 

I have used both Swiftkey X and Swype, and while both are better than the stock keyboard, Swype is far better and more useable in my opinion. It integrates better with apps, and the carat makes it easy to highlight exactly the text you want. It's handling of prediction/correction and it's custom dictionary are better as well.

 

Interesting. Since the default keyboard is multi-touch, I was hoping, after reading your post, that shift-backspace would do a forward delete. It does not, though.

I also tried with Swiftkey X (my default keyboard) - no such luck with that, either.

Thankfully, positioning the cursor isn't that difficult with gingerbread in most text fields that I have used. Tap once to show that blue cursor carat, then you can drag it pretty accurately to where you want it to go.

 

Lol yeah, I didn't post about it but the first thing I did after reading the post about 3 minutes after it was made was to try Shift + backspace. No dice.