Tiger Mail's "Dumb Folders"

I'm constantly amazed at some of the really great ideas Apple chooses to ruin. I, like many other Apple groupies, picked up my copy of Tiger (i.e., that's the code name of the latest version of Mac OS X for the uninitiated). Anyway, there are some nifty features, there are some features that will be cooler once there are more plugins available, and there are a few misfires.

Mail's Smart Folders are one of those failures, IMO. A "Smart Folder" is like the "vFolder" of Evolution or the "Virtual Folder" of Mozilla or Thunderbird. The basic concept is that you create a search for some mail and then create a folder which always contains an updated search. This way, you can avoid the risk of filing a message inproperly and can make it possible to sort your mail without taking hours. Since I receive hundreds of email messages a day (sysadmins get a lot of log information and error notifications in the form of email, plus spam, plus help requests, plus personal messages, etc.), I was looking forward to this feature. I thought I might be able to replace my traditional folders. Well, I was wrong.

Basically, it works great, except that the available search options are too limited. If they had made it as useful as the "Rules" feature, it would have been enough. But, instead it's crippled to the point where it is incomplete . I've attached a comparison of the options for Rules and the options for Smart Folders. The considerably larger menu is for the Rules. There may be a solution I haven't yet found yet since Apple often does include undocumented or little documented features for the power users that buy the Mac sycophant magazines. However, it should have been a no brainer.

Apple, why!? Why cripple something that you've already added in another place? Why?