one doesn't have to remember it is necessary to type AND in all caps (for instance),
This is not always necessary.
Just type:
[word]=
It may not always achieve the "AND" effect, but in many cases it will.
To avoid case problems, what about "&"?
One of the problems with X1 may be that it is just too flexible, which means that we can all achieve some of what we want without bothering to learn how we should do it. In the process, we may not search as efficiently as we could. I really do keep meaning to read all those manuals.
Thus many of the ideas that come up here are redundant. Or rather, they are from people who want X1 to achieve something that X1 can already achieve, but they want to do it in their way and sometimes only their way.
While it would be wonderful to have our own personal software designer tweaking the interface to cope with our foibles, that way madness lies for everybody else.
My own preference is for something that performs as near as dammit like other search software that I use. Google for example. The last thing I want at my age, is to be constantly switching between different ways of interrogating software.
Ideally I would even use my browser to run an X1 search, and to be able to use something like Google at the same time, in the same way that other software searches. I gather that this is, indeed, how the corporate version works.