For me, the problem with the search function is that it only lists exact matches (in titles). For instance: if I were to looking for 'troll overhauls' on Skyrim SE's search abomination by typing in 'trolls', it would omit the most popular one since that one doesn't specifically has the plural in its title, and if I'd search for the singular 'troll', I'd get bombarded by tons of controller remaps, sweetroll replacers, and whatnot. I feel like this has lead to the keyword vomit in titles, in the hope they might show up on some searches; cause otherwise no one will find them without the exact wording used in the title. It's even worse if you're looking for a mod from a specific author, cause unless they're "vain" enough to put their own name in their mod titles, you'll only patches from others. So if you want to search for an author, you can't use the search function, but you'll have to go to the mods/all mods page instead, scroll down and search by uploader.
Whatever it is you claim to have done with the search feature hasn't impacted the results whatsoever. As far as I can tell, it only blocks your entire screen to show you some pictures with part of the titles, which isn't especially helpful without either the rest of the title and the description, and of course you'll have to be sure about your choice before clicking on one of the results, cause if you ain't, you can't just press back to go to the results anymore. I'm not saying the old quick-search interface was flawless, but it at least had some usage. This thing does not.