I've tried it, and it's a pain even with dedicated keys.
This is one point of Raskin's design where the rationale is sound, but the solution he found was sub-optimal. Instead of a "pure" quasimode, modern interfaces do incremental searching following the search box style introduced by Firefox, with a persistent dedicated and non-obtrusive search field.
I find that this is a superior interaction, and it still can be considered non-modal. The style has spread to notifications too, with browsers showing small rectangles above and below the window instead of an obtrusive modal alert dialog.
This is one point of Raskin's design where the rationale is sound, but the solution he found was sub-optimal. Instead of a "pure" quasimode, modern interfaces do incremental searching following the search box style introduced by Firefox, with a persistent dedicated and non-obtrusive search field.
I find that this is a superior interaction, and it still can be considered non-modal. The style has spread to notifications too, with browsers showing small rectangles above and below the window instead of an obtrusive modal alert dialog.