The search engine needs a complete overhaul, it doesn't provide even the basic functionality as it is.
We would need several advanced search options, such as:
Being able to differentiate the types of the content you want to find for example by ticking boxes. It would be good to have a box for development journals, news, and each forum category separately. This would greatly elevate the relevance of the results one can obtain.
Being able to require the keyword to be found either in thread title, post text field, or both. More relevant results.
Being able to filter if you want to see individual posts or just thread by their starting posts. At the moment the same thread pops up once for each post that mentions the key word and it really clutters up the results.
Being able to filter by author name. Say, if I wanted to find all posts by Caspian. Also Wiki contributors would benefit from something like this.
This is beside the obvious problem mentioned by Deadlymad that some keywords don't work. Also it's not clear what characters are supported. For example "insta-relic" as a search term brings up no results, even though this term has been used in posts before. The null result would make sense if that search brought up all posts with "insta" mentioned but without "relic". The operators aren't marked clearly either.