No, I think they're just lazy...
There I said it, now flame me...
I use the search thing all the time, and yes it's sometimes quite annoying, but then again, I always managed to find what I was looking for with the use of 3-letter words...
But if you use an exact phraze (so WITH quotionsmarks), you CAN use 3-letter words...
PS: were you looking for this:
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=18135?