Hear hear. When I'm on a computer I usually go to Google because if I go to OSM and type in a nearby major road, it gives me a list of addresses. And the one I want is probably thirtieth on the list and has a form that is obscure. If you can't search for street names in OSM, it shouln't let me try. Instead of giving me useless results, it should direct me to how I can obtain useful results.

"Commercial Road" - no relevant results in two pages.

"Commercial Road malvern" - no results at all. It turns out in Malvern, Commercial Rd is called Malvern Rd. It seems cruel that OSM requires me to tell it exactly what I'm searching for and to get it right. Giving related information to help the search doesn't help it find the location.

"Sydney Road" - no relevant results.

"Sydney Road brunswick" - finally, the first result is listed as "Sydney Road, Brunswick, City of Moreland, Greater Melbourne, Victoria, 3052, Australia", but it's death by too much information. (a) It's buried in a list of very similar results and I can't quite be sure the one I got is the one I want - this becomes a bigger problem with a minor street. (b) who cares that it's in the city of Moreland? If you're going to list the local administrative district name, why not also the state electoral division? Address are place names, and "City of Moreland" simply isn't a place name. It's the name of the territory controlled by the Moreland City Council, but it's not a placename. Combining (a) and (b), take a look at "Sydney Road, Sparta Place, Brunswick, City of Moreland, Greater Melbourne, Victoria, 3039, Australia". What's that even supposed to mean? I cry.

Google suffers the problem in the opposite way, normalising addresses to the most obscure and ambiguous form they could find, preferring road numbers to names, and using "Melbourne" instead of the suburb name. But at least it finds the place I'm after. OSM is barely useable. Not for want of data, but because it just doesn't care to tell me how to find what I'm looking for. It's exhausting. OSM is useless for practical purposes. I want to use it for a variety of reasons, but I can't.