Files Context Menu too limited Is there a way to incorporate Windows file context menu into the blender context menu?
For example, when I use 3dsMax, I am able to right-click on a file use use something like OpenWith to launch my installation of GIMP to graphically edit and refine an image.  Whereas with blender I need to copy the location, and then open up file manager, search for the file (perhaps a folder with many files), and then OpenWith.
when using a more File-Explorer-like interface, I can also highlight/find the file in a large folder by replacing the last letter the '*' end hit enter to narrow/filter the file list.  Again a great convenience that I don't have with blender File View.
Am I over-looking a way to regain this productivity in blender?
Yes, the blender file browser is limited, but there are some workarounds for both of the things you mentioned.

Editing images. Blender has an option in the image editor to “edit externally,“ which can be set in user preferences to open images in whatever your favorite image editor program is (GIMP in my case), and then you can reload the image from the source to update it when you’re done.
Filtering. The file browser itself has search box in the header at the top that does not look in subdirectories. Try this for quick filtering of large directories.