I have been using the separate search bar for, idk, 10(?) years and I have never encountered a single bug with it (including the one you describe). Maybe you should give it another chance and chalk that up to an issue with the initial rollout, which is a standard thing to happen on virtually every software release.

> The default behavior is also nonsensical if you want to access anything on the local network by name.

Ok, and what percent of users do you think that affects? And what percent of those aren't technically savvy enough to enable the separate search bar? And what percent of those who aren't under a company managed policy that enables the separate search bar automatically? Let's make some reasonable estimates about those numbers and then reevaluate how "nonsensical" this core feature of Firefox is.

> Ok, and what percent of users do you think that affects?

And that right here is the same argument you can make for showing the hand full of remaining Firefox users a "this site requires a modern browser, download chrome here" message. After all the amount of users affected by that is a fucking rounding error.

That is not remotely the same argument. Designing efficient UX != ensuring open standards on the Web