I really like the Ecency front end too. Like you say, the search bar is there, and gives relevant results.
A couple things you didn't mention that I like is 1) when you start to write a post it has the last post you made pre-loaded. This saves me a lot of time when I'm updating my daily giveaway. And it saves me trying to remember, and often mistyping, the tags I am trying to use.
- The code snipplet feature lets you keep bits of code (maybe wholeposts? I don't know the size restrictions.). I use that for adding the code to put in source on images. I don't have much of a footer, but it would be great for that too.
I actually only recently discovered what "snippets" are. It's another good feature.