Not disagreeing with your main point but some anecdata on local searches: for me, Google likes to show me the other, larger city by the same name several hundred miles away. If I use Google Maps it likes to teleport as well. Sometimes even serving results for unrelated businesses, like one time I was searching for a photo developer and it recommended a B rate fast food chain.

Kagi has done a much better job of respecting where I live, though it has had a few minor misses that Google produced (maybe after wading through some crap).