The base software has undergone numerous updates so some functions were made redundant, but different or new options came on line.
The sheer growth over the years also increases the difficulty to find things. We archived a heap of stuff too which isn't fully viewable, but lacked too much of its original content to keep it viewable.
We don't actually delete anything, we only hide it or archive it, so the full history is still there in the background.
As Glen mentioned, 2 years was a huge undertaking to revive and recover as much as we could, but i am unsure about being able to reinstate old serch systems without having to rebuild entire sections or creating a single post and linking everything back to it like Caleb did for his all in one post.
I too use google to search up things on our forums sometimes, because it is easier