[whpalmer4]

Did you happen to read the documentation? The built-in help states:

The OmniFocus toolbar includes a Search field for filtering the main outline down to items that contain a certain string of text. (emphasis added)

I would agree that labeling it "Search" is a bit misleading. If the label for the Search field was "Search View" or "Search Window" or something to that effect, would you have been tripped up by this?

Do you also propose that search should search all items, regardless of their state of completion? The iPad app does that, and frankly, I find it unhelpful most of the time! If your proposed implementation does heed the view settings, scraping off all of the matching items not in the current view due to their completion status, or dates/duration/etc. what is the fundamental difference between that and the current behavior? Both will give you an incomplete list of matches if you are expecting the input to the filter to be everything in the database. If you do not heed the view settings, don't you think that is also going to be confusing when the view bar settings and window perspective name say one thing but the window contents are completely different? The iPad app's search function gives a view that is different enough (there's a big search bar right across the top of the screen) that it is clear that you aren't in the standard view, but that isn't so much the case on the Mac.