search as a service
This is probably obvious to most, but it just hit me in the face this morning: desktop search is best executed both as an app (“I’m going here to find something”) and as a component of the OS (“I need to attach a file to this message, now where is that again?”). Something as simple as baking search (and ideally fast preview) functionality into the File Open dialog would go a long way towards enabling “search rather than browse” behavior.