Well yeah it's a workaround, but I'm saying I think it still should be changed. And also, it really is needed other times. Why should I bother having the increased processing to check for an *, &, or ? when I know I want to just search for the word "test"? Why not simply see if test is there. When using wildcards mIRC must do:
t:
is it a "*"?
is it a "?"?
is it a "&"?
no, it's a letter, check for t
e:
is it a "*"?
is it a "?"?
is it a "&"?
no, it's a letter, check for e
s:
is it a "*"?
is it a "?"?
is it a "&"?
no, it's a letter, check for s
t:
is it a "*"?
is it a "?"?
is it a "&"?
no, it's a letter, check for t
Why bother having all that extra checking when I already know that the answer to those questions will never be yes? Meaning, think of it this way, iswm can be used to do just about everything isin can, the reason isin is there is because there is no reason to check for wildcards if you don't care about wildcards.