I posted the below in reference to a topic elsewhere (substring searching). I think it deserves it's own thread because it really is sort of annoying right now. That is, the not userfriendly way that search grids work. So, without further ado, here is what I said before:
 
An ideal search feature might be as follows: (Things in *'s are selectable items)  
   
 Search for *substring* *String to Search For* in *Description*  
   
 *or*  
   
 Search for *starts with* *StringToSearchFor* in *Description*  
   
 *and*  
   
 Search for *ends with* *StringToSearchFor* in *Address*  
   
 It's hard to explain in text but the gist of it is that there are one or more search criteria (just click ADD or something to add one) that can be AND, OR, NOT with the rest of the criteria. Each criteria is a selectable field, selectable how to use that field (Starts with, ends with, contains, doesn't contain, etc), and selectable what string to search for. This is easy and intuitive and anybody can be taught how to use it to make arbitrarily complicated search criteria.

Yes, making the searching case sensitive is just plain a bad idea. Do I really need to try to figure out whether it's SMITH ENTERPRISES, Smith Enterprises, or smith enterprises? They should all be equivalent for searching purposes.