Hi Shawn,
The method of search now being used is a MySQL FULL_TEXT search which by default does not allow any search terms less than 4 characters. If you have access to the MySQL config you can change it to a lower value but it is recommended that you do not do this as it could impact the speed of your site if you have a lot of users doing searches.
Rick has said that he will be working on some changes to allow the old style of searching in a future upcoming update. I'm not exactly sure though when that will be available.
