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You are correct that just because the officer believes that a search is “reasonable” does not, in and of itself, make it constitutional; the person searched certainly can have an opinion different from that of the officer, and if he is charged with a crime the reasonableness of the search will be determined by the judicial system. Unfortunately, because of liberal judges, only when the cops actually find evidence of a crime in a search does the reasonableness of the search become an issue, and cops are free to harass innocent citizens all day long without any repercussions.

“Why bother with a warrant in the first place?” Because if the officer has a warrant no one can say “Boo” to him, and he is immune from any possible claim. The Framers wanted to limit the ability of officers to obtain warrants, given the abuses that took place when British authorities would issue “general warrants” that allowed cops to search whatever they wanted with no repercussions. That’s why the Fourth Amendment has such strict requirements for being able to obtain a warrant: probable cause, and specificity of the place to be searched and the thing or person to be seized.

I believe an example is the traffic stop of a car driven erratically, suspected of being under the influence and an obvious immediate danger to others on the road.

If the officers see an open bottle or drug paraphanalia laying right on the seat in plain view, they can use that as evidence. If they don't, I believe the ask the driver if they'd consent to a search. This consent, I think, puts them on better grounds in court, as far as the search being Constitutional. But they certainly don't wait for a search Warrant in every one of those cases. And they'd certainly be remiss in their duties if they simply allowed the obviously impaired driver to simply hop back in their car and go on their merry way if they can hardly stand up.

Of course, it’s obvious to a sane person that blanket searches such as NSA “whole pipe” data capture are seizing electronic records and communications (email and phone records being analagous to physical letters and phone bill detail and them some; note the term email refers to electronic mail) from literally millions of American citizens.

And without a doubt almost none of them have absolutely anything to do with terrorism, and if there was normal police investigative “legwork” done for each of these people, this would be obvious rather quickly.

Which is why law enforcement investigations never use the “brute force” method of finding suspects, where every single citizen is considered a suspect and house to house searches conducted for entire towns. Not only would it be unconstitutional, it would be very ineffective, as compared to narrowing down the searching as much and as soon as possible.

Of course, if this were actually to be done regarding terrorism, the first criteria would be islam, and then finding the terrorists would be a realistic proposition.

Since this terrorism is merely a tool of the financial oligarchy, if the path were followed to its end, this it would lead back to them. But we never even start on the correct path, islam, so the financial oligarchs are safely hidden behind it. And they get to have the Executive Branch leadership continue to use the full force of the government to root out and marginalize any and all significant threats to their new world order goals.

But they certainly don't wait for a search Warrant in every one of those cases.

While police without a warrant may not have to let the driver leave without being searched, that wouldn't imply that they have the right to search without a warrant. I would posit that a driver should be within his rights to wait with his car until such time as police can produce a warrant, and that police who are preventing a driver from leaving should be required to make a good faith effort to get the warrant as expeditiously as practical. In cases where a warrant would clearly be justified, a driver could save everyone's time by simply consenting to a search. On the other hand, if a warrant wouldn't be justified, a driver should be entitled to refuse.

Note that even if it's likely that a court would rubber-stamp a warrant, requiring that the cop apply for one would require the cop to document what he believes to be legitimate basis for the search before it is conducted, and prevent a cop from conducting a search and then using his findings to formulate a plausible justification.