[KevinH]

And how would a pop-up window that would need to be dismissed or accepted by pushing a button be any improvement over a Find status message that does not have to be dismissed and a restart button to use if and when you want.

Sometimes long time but not well designed interfaces simply need to be redesigned so that more types of searches are made faster/easier.

Sometimes change can be useful. Give it a try.
If you can simply not adapt, then just stick with an older version. Or alternatively build your own at any time.