Unfortunately I think that is currently it. Generally, I just scroll through the /created and /trending via bookmarks. For example, using the chess tag:

https://steemit.com/trending/chess
https://steemit.com/created/chess

I'm sure steemit will improve the search functionality soon. I agree that is clunky! However, I think the Steemit developers probably saw that they can monetize a google search (adsense income) so it might stay that way. We'll see and sorry not to be of more help!