I'll think about how to make this change, but I think I'll hold off until we have some experience with the php/mysql search engine. I think it'll be sort of o.k., but I think with some creativity, I can do something that will beat it.
I bet you can ;) Currently, I am just putting jokers around the search request ("%foobar%") and look for it in titles and fulltext. Pityful, yes.
I'd also suggest to have some Google-like mechanism that uses your "trick" and suggests links with "Did you mean to search for *foobaring*?" or similar. That wouldn't mess up the search results and still make it easy to try variations.
Magnus