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it’s a lot simpler than it appears

The appearance of complexity is complexity. When it comes to user interface design, initial user perception is reality and you must adapt to it. Never ask users to learn to adapt to, understand or "become acquainted" with your screen. It should immediately appear friendly and easy to use, and then it actually should be friendly and easy to use. Yet another reason why the average joe likes Apple products.

In reality, like I said earlier, it’s a lot simpler than going through several screens for selections

There are more than only two ways to do this. Have you considered categorized drop-downs instead of tall list boxes? Screens full of options like yours turn off users. The "Categories" box is begging for an AJAX tree control.

Also look at the tile search. Exact, any and all? How about one input box, with exact, any and all radio buttons? Don't require commas either. Delineate automatically. You don't know which one users will hit most, so if you can't do user testing, let it go live but track which types of searches users do. After a while if users prefer "any" or "all" instead of "exact" then make that option default instead of "exact."

I'll give you a more physical analogy for an architect. He designed buildings around a large courtyard, but didn't put in any sidewalks or walkways. People said this was a stupid omission. But it wasn't. Instead, he waited a few months, and then laid walkways over the paths the people had worn into the grass by walking. This way, the walkways exactly matched the way the people wanted to walk, instead of trying to force people to walk the way he thought they should. In the end, it's more efficient and saves the grass.

I just dislike the fanaticism that surrounds the Apple users, and I myself, do own an iPad and an older Mac. But, I don... I’m just a lot more practical than most people

You are perceiving a lot more fanatics than actually exist. Most of Apple's sales are to regular people who just like the products. Me, I like Apple products because they are the best. I will stop buying them when something else is better enough to make a switch worth it. I only have a Mac because Vista sucked around the time I needed a new computer (great buy, too, because this old iMac is working even better three OS versions later). I'd been toying with the idea of a Mac for years, but they were never the right buy for me until then.

The appearance of complexity is complexity

I completely understand what you're saying, and I agree, but, I too have been a major advocate of "simple is best", or the KISS principle. I have a lot of years in design for online applications, and, everyone of my designs took into consideration of designing for the lowest common denominator, or the assumption that, sooner or later, a dummy is going to have to used the system, and even he/she has to be able to view and understand exactly what the screen (and system) is going to do for him or her. That's why I debated going with simple steps, and one screen for each item in the criteria screen, and, I came to the conclusion that, too many steps would tend to complicate matters more, and make the simple matter of getting at articles too lengthy and time consuming. Also, and in fact, I originally did design the list boxes as drop down lists, and, I felt that, a list box, with items already populating the box, would, "intuitively" give a sense of what to expect when looking further down the list with the scroll bar. What you suggest I already did, and, in fact, would be very easy to go back to, since I saved the original design and coding. Another matter that you suggest, I would agree with, except that, when it comes to "Categories" and "Subjects", a delineating character is necessary in order to separate a category from other categories, or subjects from other subjects. My categories and subjects are not single word entries or selections. Thus, "politics" is simple to separate as per your suggestion, but, "politics of poverty" would not be easy to separate from "politics of poverty republican platform", when "republican platform" would be another category or even a separate subject. Categories and subjects can be multi-word phrases, and I want to easily capture what the user is looking for. If they make a mistake in their selections and/or entries, the system will just not find what the user is looking for, and they will be informed of that fact, with errors indicated in appropriate and corresponding boxes. My testing has not been as thorough as could be or as I would like, since, it's mostly on my own, and by looking at what a lot of other sites do, and learning from what they do well, and don't do so well. On the other matter of Apple fanaticism, I do frequent a few sites dedicated to computer and software and internet technology, and what I find annoying, is the fanaticism that is frequently encountered about one platform or another, and, from what I've witnessed, the Apple fanboyism is the worst that can be found. Other than that, I don't care what one uses as hardware or software, but, like I mentioned earlier, I am a very practical person, and I will always design for, and use, the most prevalent and used platform out there, and that just happens to be, Windows and the whole Windows ecosystem. However, I do test my project to make sure it works fine on the other browsers besides Internet Explorer.