>In the case of finding something, holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching.

Ok, so you would recommend what? A single key? But remember, it needs to work in a text editor where you're actually typing stuff.

Of course, searching is such a fundamental verb that there probably should be a dedicated key on keyboards for it. In fact, on android phones, one of the four standard hardware buttons is for search. But the designers of most software have to work in the absence of such sensible input devices.