[AmberV]

I wouldn't that like because then you reduce consistency. The reason why the whole abbreviation matching thing works so well is that your brain picks up on these things exceptionally quickly. You only need to type in an abbreviation for something a few times before you'll remember it very well. When the software is being adaptive on the other hand and adjusting to how your memory takes to these things, it is a very powerful combination. If you start messing with what matches and what does not match, it will slow down your recall. It seems like a small thing, but if you are used to typing 'mhea' for 'Mental Health', and decided to put that on hold for a while and suddenly 'mhea' starts matching 'Miles Heath Contract', it would mess with your brain. And the moment I have to start reaching for more characters to type in, or worse, the arrow keys to select a highly demoted project--the process becomes cumbersome when multiplied by constant usage.

Personally, I don't think there is any need to artificially restrict access to holding projects. As I said above, I can zip through thousands of possible matches in seconds using LaunchBar. I hardly think 30 projects is going to be that encumbered by the addition of another 20 or 40 holding projects. It isn't as though we are talking about adding 100,000 new items to the list.