In Finder, I have always used Command+Up arrow to go up one level to go through my subdirectories very quickly, especially when developing and am traversing the same directory sections.
So, today (having just upgraded to Snow Leopard a few days ago; I know I am late), I used this same shortcut but up popped a new Finder window for my home directory. I had to check to understand how I did that.
I was not in the current Finder window. Instead, I had clicked on the Desktop. I have tested this and you can have either nothing selected or anything selected and it still works. It appears the Desktop now works exactly like a Finder window for this. This is a little easier than clicking the Command+Shift+H to get there.
[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described. I also tried it in 10.5 and it worked there too, so this isn't a new thing in Snow Leopard, but just one of those little peculiarities of the Finder that we all know and love. It's in the Finder 'Go' menu as 'Enclosing Folder' and the fact that the Desktop is also a folder inside the Home directory is what causes this behavior, so it probably goes back even further.]

