Thank you for sharing all these experiences! One thing is that I don’t understand the god-mode commentary. I’ve used it for years, and it works in the minibuffer and I’ve never noticed any oddities with search. A caveat with minibuffer usage is that my modeline indicator of modality is not accurate for the minibuffer.

So, say I am editing a buffer in god-mode modality and I enter an interactive command. Now focus is in the minibuffer and my modeline still suggests I am in god-mode, but I am actually in normal mode (the modeline is attached to the buffer). If I switch modes, I can tell that I’m in god-mode by hitting a or e to navigate the line I’m editing in the minibuffer. Switch again to go back to normal mode editing in the minibuffer.