Try searching these forums and you'll see you are not alone...so not alone, sir. When the search does work, it returns duplicate postings for me; each post in the thread is repeated and added to the end of the thread in duplicate...when it doesn't return an error or timeout.

Incorporate a Google site search? 

I've had 'search' related posts that went weeks without responses and then it was more of an acceptance of the fact that it's broken, a fact of DNN life, I guess. But at least we now have OpenID.

As for whether or not the DNN team reads these posts, I'll just say that I have noticed a total depreciation in response times since the forums went from being moderated to open postings; this change brought with it a turnover in moderators, as some of the most helpful individuals were asked to take their balls and go home. As a result, I see the same 4-5 people tackling the the bulk of the postings.  Perhaps a moderator could share some of the stats with us? My time here is still being measured in months and today's DNN forums seem markedly different that when I find arrived...

With that said, there are some project areas that are totally on their game and a pleasure to post in...very, very helpful, quite responsive, and receptive to user concerns and outstanding issues and go out of their way to improve upon the project...survey comes to mind.