If a vendor search system did come into play, it could be to the detriment of Luna, and a benefit to everyone else, provided there were some safeguards. However, safeguards would not be easy to make. Without safeguards, you'll have people trying to monopolize trade. So, for the most part, I'd be against vendor search. One form of safeguard I can think of would be the following: If you have "x" item or item type for sale on your own vendor, or any vendor in a house you own or co-own with any character on the account, you can't use the search system to buy it off someone else, only be able to see the price they are charging. But, that would be a pain in the arse to code.
What this could be (And I hope it is) is a means to set up a broker to either buy stuff from others securely, or (better yet) to allow you to put out a Broker in your house for other people to sell to you, at a price you specify.
The latter is especially useful, as you could have a guild all selling to one person's broker, allowing the broker owner to then turn around and be the merchant chief for the guild.
Example: 10 different guild members mine, then sell their excess ingots to the broker. The broker's owner then repackages the ingots to sell to the public.
This would keep the prices uniform for the guild, have the miners get paid immediately for their wares (instead of having to wait until the customer comes along), and puts the financial risk onto just the one merchant (which would probably have his vendors set up in the best place the guild has access to).
This would also have a tendency to keep the guild's ingot vendor stocked, through legal play, almost as reliably as one being ran by a scripter - instead of having 10 half-empty vendors most of the time.
The Merchant would also be able to take sub-optimum amounts from multiple sellers to the broker, to produce standard increments of goods (if ingots are usually sold by the 1000, the ability of 10 miners to sell amounts less than 1000 to the broker, and the broker's owner then combining them into lots of 1000, will produce a more steady supply to the guild's vendor).
With a in-house broker system, set up to deal only in stackable items and buy them from other players, having a BROKER search feature would be a benefit, as sellers could then see who wants stuff, and who is offering the best prices. The brokers would also be a clue (not very reliable) as to where one might also find vendors selling the product being bought (if the broker is acting in the above example of being an agent collecting stuff for guild or alliance resale).
I think it is though, so I may be putting my accounts on hold for a while and going to freeshard, depending on how this pans out. We'll see.
