I never ever ever never use SO's search feature: I land on the result through Google. So I guess they should give Google some credit for the claimed performance?
You miss the point: I never use the search feature of the site, I go to the answer/subject directly from Google's results. I do not think Google is running my keywords against SO's server in 'real-time' and returning the answers as results, Google returns indexed/cached copies. I am sure that many users behave like I do, no? They might as well keep a static copy of all pages in RAM and only update when new comments/answers are posted.
