Searching function on this Forum

[tinkthank]

I am unable to find vast quantities of threads which I know exist. I do not believe that they have been removed with the forum update (although I am pretty sure that some threads and almost all polls *have* been -- why??), but because I cannot get the "search" function to perform a helpful search for me, and I don't know why.
Can anyone help?
I believe anyone helping me would also be helping a great number of forum members, especially "newbies", whose requests for information are often helped a great deal with the recourse to the "search" function.
I hope this does not sound like a "whine", since I am very pleased with the effort that Shrapnel or whomever invested in rehauling the forum, and I appreciate it very much, even if I found it wasn't really necessary.
Generally, I was pleased with the way the "old" forums performed a search. Generally, I am looking for a way to emulate that functionality now.
Specifically, and oversimplified, I am looking for a way to
- find threads instead of Posts within a thread
- start a search which finds *ALL* components of the parameters (a simple "and" command)
- save my search parameter wishes