Is there a way to navigate or filter Launchpad using type-selection?
I guess you can just forgo launchpad and try Alfred. It's navigated by keyboard anyway, so you can configure it to just show apps when you type something into the bar. Because, as you said, a user probably knows the app their searching for, theres not really a point to look at a grid of all the options in Launchpad, when you know you are only going to need one.