I think I may be the exception but i have never even used the speed dial search. I only use the main url bar.

g searchstring and i search google. y searchstring and i search yahoo. i have also made some for other sites such as stackoverflow s searchstring and i search SO.

so imo its not a big deal who the default is, with the exception of the main url bar default search.

Microsoft is really throwing money at search lately. Bing is everywhere (Colbert, iOS 4, "Filomena", "Search Overload").

How long can they keep it up for the returns they're getting?

The default was Ask Jeeves, so not like it's a huge step down :)

One of my favorite little tweaks using opera is making Wikipedia the speed dial search engine. I've already got google up top, so having a wikipedia box every time I open a new tab pretty much accounts for 100% of my search needs.

As for bing, I don't plan on using it so... who cares?

I'm using it now, and Google is still the real default for everything else (search bar, etc.)