Regex is not something that a beginner scripter is going to understand even if it really doesn't take much to convert a search to compatible regex. Beginner scripters simply aren't going to have any idea how to do it. I think having a case sensitive switch for $read() could be useful. I very rarely do anything that uses case sensitivity, so would probably never use it myself, but I don't think that telling a new scripter to use regex is a good option for them either.
