Chris,

I've got the same situation as you do with regard to up/down arrows.  But, I constantly forget that Gene has the NVDA default behavior of auto-switching between browse and focus mode turned off, as he prefers to manually mode-switch.  Up/down arrow when in an edit box to move out of it to whatever follows it on the page only works when your are in browse mode, and under NVDA defaults you will auto-switch to focus mode when you land in an edit box.  If you're in focus mode, and the box is empty, you'll hear blank if you down arrow.

Try hitting NVDA + Spacebar when you're in the edit box to toggle from focus back to browse mode and then down arrow.  I just did this and once you manually toggle out of focus mode you'll stay in browse mode until you toggle back, so down arrowing continues to work.

What's really interesting is that three edit boxes, full name, email address, and twitter name are the boxes sans any labels announced, but when you land in the edit box for Any extra things you think we should know and are in auto switch mode and it switches to focus mode it is announced.  Truly weird in terms of accessibility in a form.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

The difference between a top-flight creative man and the hack is his ability to express powerful meanings indirectly.

         ~ Vance Packard