If you don't get feedback from your performers and your audience, you're going to be working in a vacuum.
Search as a paradigm will continue to be probably even increasingly important because the information that's out there is only going to grow exponentially - and the only way to sort through all that is by some form of search.
In real life, I don't fall in love with the guy who wines and dines me, I fall in love with the flaws and the humanity.