1) Big part of the new users are not following/ reading the rules. But there are also not so well organized rules and it's not easy to find them. Newbies keep asking the same questions over and over again. Maybe this is the way to improve other members Activity points.
2) The search engine is poor in search options and it's not easy to find what actually you are looking for. I couldn't sort by date the results and I had to scroll quite a lot.
1) agree to this, it is irritating to see the same questions being asked again and again. Most common question is "How can I get merit". Even if you tell them the answer, they do not follow the advice and keep making shit posts. Just one change is needed to reduce this- official thread about merit system should be made sticky.
2) That is the common issue with most of the forums as they use the default forum software search. You can try searching for information using Google and mention bitcointalk.org at end of the keyword.