I tried them again this week (next.duckduckgo made me give it another go) still isn't great, found myself using g! almost every time.

I'm almost 100% sure its the lack of bubbling, as much as I hate bubbling as a concept, overall, it makes search ten times better. I would have simply liked if they focused on privacy but kept the killer feature that is user oriented search.

I do like how some of my technical questions found long forgotten forums and mailing list archives that google wouldn't dare show me anymore. Even if I was just looking for the stackoverflow answer..