Well, if there is choice between me having my äöå characters as dedicated characters and having cursor keys, I would go for öäå instantly.

FN+left and right is up and down for those layouts. Yes, like on the C64. But FN+something isn't so bad. (Learn that mantra, you will be using FN a lot anyway, for numbers, punctuation etc.)

It isn't so bad, really.

Edit: And anyway, English users still have the four dedicated cursor keys, so you don't need to even worry about this.