I handled this a totally different way, and wonder if it is acceptable.
I went to the “searchform.php” file and moved the “*/” following the comments at the top to the bottom, so that the header is calling an empty file.
Is this totally a bad way of handling things?
Interesting this is so old, I’m having the problem now in 2010 with only my 2009 posts showing, I can navigate to the more recent posts in the archive, and can force them to show via making it sticky but it will not show 2010 posts under most recent, I have 2 2010 posts so far at: kristinbennett.com, you’ll notice only 1 is visible (that is the one I made sticky)