I think I'd much rather use something like Midnight Commander. You can move using arrow keys (right arrow to cd to a dir, left to cd back, up and down to select file/dir), as well as use the traditional 'cd' command, as well as move through history using M-y and M-u, as well as incremental search, as well as using bookmarks/directory hotlist.
Plus, you don't have to clutter your bash history with loads of 'i' commands (I know about HISTCONTROL=ignorespace and HISTIGNORE, but still).