Maybe I'm looking up practices on how to write efficient SQL queries. All of the results I find are just slideshare presentations and basic blog posts on how to add an index to your select statement.
It feels impossible to find depth nowadays, when everything that search engines deem relevant are the big, heavy-SEO websites with the lowest tier of query-relevant information. Sure, the results may be good for people who want just-the-basics about what they're searching, but anything more than that feels hidden away.
I'm sure it's confusing to your algorithms on many levels. Is it a map of the highway that I want? Oh, there's this game, let's add that too. What about some news about the highway?
I just want some new roads to frag on... I get one result with what I'm looking for.
It's very easy now for good content to be hidden amongst clickbait.
Dollars put into the branding of being the best search aimed at the current userbase are been more effective than actually innovating on search anyway. People don't objectively rank search results between engines. They do defend their current habits, though, and solid branding material gives them something to tell themselves to counteract any (rare) arguments to switch.
Everyone will search for something with a different set of words based on their experience. If most of those sets of words, all used to search for the same topic in the end, return the same results, isn't it an improvement?
Unfortunately, as you said, it doesn't help when trying to tweak the results you see to find your answer, but most people probably don't search in depth to find THE answer, but are looking for AN answer.