Great idea for a bounty, I can't stand the current google search setup - more flexibility in search + having better integration into the site would be great.
I have no experience with elasticsearch though, fingers crossed we've got some guru's on the job now :)
I remember there was @kaptainkrayola with steemshovel and @jabbasteem made steemle , but I'm not sure if they're still with us ..
I'm still here (mostly) and Steemshovel is still live and indexing posts. you can always find me on Skype - kaptainkrayola in case you can't reach me here or steemit.chat