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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.

About the UI, just trying to be helpful. Take or leave any of it. Hope it works out for you.

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

I can understand the "design for" logic. On mobile, that would be Android and iOS. A guy who has suffered a horrible band saw accident could probably still count the Windows percentage of market share on one hand, and that market share is about to disappear since Windows 7 is now officially an orphan, no reason whatsoever to buy it.

But as far as the "use" logic, then if you wanted the most popular vehicle you'd have to buy a Ford F-series truck, even if you just wanted a car. If you wanted the most popular car you'd have to get a Toyota Camry. Yuck. Why?