Something I just can't live without is the ability to touch file timestamps directly from Dolphin. Opening up a terminal, typing "touch " and dragging the file from Dolphin into the terminal is way too much effort. I am looking for a keyboard shortcut or a context menu extension. I'm happy to write the code, but I have no idea where to begin. Ideas?

for service menus (context menu extension) you can use existing code similar to what you want to accomplish, they would be found in ~/.kde[4]/share/kde4/services/ServiceMenus and /usr/share/kde4/services/ServiceMenus/ (note: your distro may place this folder elsewhere)

there are articles/tutorials available if you Google, for example:
http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201210/page09.html
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/build-linu ... ice-menus/
http://blog.davidedmundson.co.uk/node/3

Thank you for all of the resources! I'll post up my solution when I get it working.