Does the search function not work anymore?

[Chojin]

As far as the search function goes, unless we install some sort of mod for 'VETS ONLY ACCESS' to the search function, we'd have even more board outages. phpBB has a weakness where you can search for 'a' or something else stupid over and over and it'll bring the board to its knees.

This is not even close to the only board that limits or disables searching - SomethingAwful does the same, for example.

Also, Rog doesn't have any of his 'cool phpBB hacks' anymore since the update. So that isn't causing your problems. The problems you mention are the same ones I have with all other phpBBs that don't fix them with extra programming.