Motorola Droid 2 :: Keyboard Shortcuts If Soft Keys Don't Work?

Without warning, my soft keys stopped working. When I press one, they activate whatever is on the touch screen above them. (For instance, the menu soft key is right below the widget on my home page for contacts. When I press the menu soft key, it activates the contacts widget rather then accessing menus.) I tried a factory reset (I'll spare you the frustrating story of how the backup app I paid for doesn't seem to have worked as promised for me, though thousands of others love it), which included clearing the cache and was done using the external keys not via the reset option in settings. Freshly restarted, prior to adding any of the apps or changing anything, the soft keys still exhibit that behaviour. (Though, come to think of it, I also think the wallpaper stayed, which makes no sense to me. Everything else had to be reconfigured and the reset/cache clearing didn't throw any errors...hmz...)

The Droid 2 keyboard has a back button, which I've been using non-stop since the soft keys went out on me. And a search button, but I never use that. I can get by without a way to simulate having the home key (though I wouldn't mind that). But, as you can imagine, the lack of a functioning Menu key is a serious impediment. I love my Droid 2 enough that, rather than use my "new every 2" to upgrade to a Droid 4, I'm hoping to either fix my issue (which could include fixing the soft keys OR findind a keyboard shortcut for the Menu key) or buy a "new" Droid 2.

So, anyone have either a troubleshooting suggestion other than a reset (tried twice now) and/or know a magical shortcut on the physical keyboard that will do the same thing as the Menu soft key?(Phone is not rooted and has the latest version of Android that Verizon pushed...Looks like 2.3.4)