I realize that there are different keyboard configurations, but generally the hyphen and underscore are combined as are the plus sign and the equal sign. The issues is that the + and - signs are on the same level, that is you need to use the shift key to get to the + key.
Would it make sense to allow for use of both keys with or without the Shift for zooming, just so you don't have to shift to zoom in and hit a single key to zoom out.
I always thought you were supposed to preferably use the + and - on the numpad (as they are easy to find and work without shift), though on, for example, my keyboard the + and - from the alphanumeric part can be both used without shift.
This is a problem where you can not please everyone, as those miscellaneous keys are mapped differently in nearly every available language or even 3 layouts for a single language.
If you map ~ and = to the same action, it could give weird problems with blocking some other action from being used on a different keyboard layout or causing not wanted map zoom while using the key for the unrelated action.
Last edit: wintertime 2015-08-01