Good point @abief . Interesting to speculate on what is going on internally at Microsoft. And nothing to do but laugh at how they seem completely comfortable with containing all this negative feedback in their own forums, then not address it.
Internally, I can imagine an ambitious Product Manager enamored with the thought of COHESION with the SYNTHESIS of top notch SEARCH across all the wonderful Office product line. INTEGRATION! It's a thing of beauty! Apple does it right? it must work! Just like the Windows Phone! Some lead's promotion depends on this feature rollout and they'll be damned if that pesky customer is gonna get in the way of the product vision. Oh the comfort in knowing that whatever godawful change they want to do for their own interests, the end user can do absolutely nothing about it. Chapeau microsoft!
Microsoft