I have a feature request that I'd first like to put on the mailing list, before putting it at SourceForge.
When I use the search feature, I am frequently annoyed by the large number of pages showing up that are simply redirects. When I type Zimbabwe, I might also be interested in "History of Zimbabwe", which shows up. I am, however, not interested in the redirect "Zimbabwe/History", which is a previous location of that same article. I know it is important to keep that redirect for linking (both internal and external), but it is not useful for searching. The same holds for all other pages that were moved because of some naming convention or change in policy, or moved across namespaces (as a side note, I'd like to be able to search in Wikipedia: namespace articles as well, there are getting too much of these pages).
My proposal is to make two kinds of redirects. The first type is the type we currently have, the second one is different in that it still redirects those visiting it, but the page does not show up in any searches. I think this can be implemented relatively easy (a "flag" in the database might do the trick), but I'm not sure if that is true; it may have some performance impact. However, I do think this is an important feature with respect to those that are using Wikipedia as an encyclopedia: you want to find thing fast, and not get 231 article title matches if searching for "Wikipedia" (which is only the 19th hit, anyway).
Of course, it would be necessary to check all redirects over time to see if it should be a "silent" redirect or not, but that's a one-time thing.
Jeronimo