search interfaces

I'm watching a video of Microsoft's Pivot - http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/VTL05.
They don't call it a search engine, but finding and exploring information on the web seems to be the primary task. The UI is extremely rich.

One of the reasons Sponsored Links on SERPs do so well is because the SERP itself is quite poor - in quality of the results as well as the user experience. If search engines provided all the answers, who would go clicking on ads.

Therefore, search supports a multi-billion dollar business because it doesn't work properly!

Perhaps that is the reason for such little progress in the area in the past so many years. Especially in the UI/UX.
Who's interested in breaking the current model?