you might want to re-read your post, there was something very interesting: "though it's limited to paying subscribers for server issues + sub persuasion".... Imagine that, paying subscribers. I'd say right now we're even, no paying subscribers (yes, they also have ads) and no search.

Seriously, we have upgraded to the new PHP fix and unfortunately it has made the overall speed of FT pretty good, but in a five hour return of search over the weekend it caused some major problems and now we're back to the drawing board. Will implement a few other solutions in the next few weeks but obviously had hoped that the PHP fix was the problem and no way of actually knowing until it was released.

BTW, what do you pay on Offtopic.com to get search privileges? Might be something we look in to because it seems you are happy with that arrangement.

Thanks for any input.