The control-click is definitely a right click,
Ah, my young padawa. The dark side has corrupted your thinking. You are failing to perceive the OS X nature of things and the Apple way. There is no right click. There is only Control-click.
but the vo-shift-space is *not* a right click.
I don't think anyone said it was.
it's just a regular mouse click, but a real one,
Correct!
instead of a simulated one which is performed with just the vo-space.
That is not exactly difference between VO-space and VO-Shift-space. VO-space is defined as "perform the default action for a selected item" and many objects have no default action defined or is not actually selected (even though the VO focus is on the item).
Adding the shift makes it a real mouse click. This is often the method required to click buttons in programs that are written with the carbon frameworks.
Understood.
I know there *is* a way to right click using the keyboard,
Not under OS X there isn't. There is no spoon. There is no right click. You *have* to be remembering wrong!
but I've never been able to remember it, or get it to work when I did remember it.
That said, If you have a real USB Windows keyboard hooked up to a Mac, what does the Windows context button do? Could you be thinking of Mouse Keys? With that feature turned on, clicking is numpad 5, so Control-click would be Control-numpad 5. Be careful to route the mouse cursor before trying that keystroke sequence.
