I would love to see a rather simple search (scan-like) command with
some minimal boolean logic with one reservation.  Is there a way to do
that in a separate thread on the non-VM platforms?  On VM there was
always the issue of "single threading" searches which may take 5 minutes
of elapsed time with all the other stuff as opposed to trying to figure
out concurrent access to the archives by LISTSERV and a parallel search
function.
 
   We used to have a large genealogy list which generated a lot of
searches and these could really back up LISTSERV for some time.  Also,
the "job" approach to searching was sort of intimidating to new users
who had never been cut by a // card!  Folks would have loved a "one command"
search.
 
   I think a simple    SEARCHLOG listname str1 str2 str3 ...
 
where str1 str2 str3 are case insensitive substrings with an implied "and"
between them with output like the "set listname index" option (so it could
be easily fed back to listserv to get the items you want) would be useful.
But it would be great if it could be implemented so the searches ran in a
separate process.  (for example, if listserv could just send these along to
this "search processor" which would process them and send the results back
without bugging LISTSERV again).  But then I see batch searches as less
"user friendly" than a web based interactive process and mainly provided
for users without that sort of network access...
 
   I think I agree with the other priorities that Eric has outlined.
 
       Marty