usaa.com is the best case example, it's just 8 characters and very fast to type but news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100 is 37, i'd much rather just type new and get the autocompletion of the rest. Also i don't want to remember if it was over?points=100 or points?over=100.

You also get the benefit of not misspelling things, and your bookmark goes straight to the https-site reducing the risk of MITM.