Fails to find files that exist, fails to search everywhere

Running OSX 10.4.3 on a Powerbook G4 1.5gHz and on a PowerMac G4/867.
I hope it is because I am doing something wrong, but so far I am very unimpressed with Spotlight, for the following reasons:
•It fails to find files that are known to exist. For example, I have an application named MacTracker. It is in my Applications folder. When I enter
tracker
in the search field,
(with location set as wide as "computer" or as narrow as "Applications", with or without a "name contains" restriction) Spotlight will not show MacTracker as existing, even though I can see it with my own eyes, in the Applications folder window in the background. Only if I search on
Mactracker
will Spotlight see the application. This seems ridiculous to me. Any search, especially a "name contains" search, ought to show MacTracker if I search on track, tracker, actra, mactrac, etc. But, no. I have to enter "MacTracker" if I want it found.
•I make use of OSX Mail only occasionally. For most of my e-mail, I use a Unix mail handler known as PINE. PINE stores incoming and outgoing mail as plain text files in /users/me/mail . However, Spotlight refuses to include that location in its searches. I have tried using the Spotlight preferences to add
/mail to the list of specific places to search; no luck, Spotlight appears completely blind to anything outside of the locations Apple arbitrarily decided I needed to be able to search in.
Can anyone offer any ideas on how to make Spotlight work for me, instead of against me?
Thanks in advance.
Mac OS X (10.4.3)

same problem here. the only answer i can find is....spotlight buh-lows. does anyone know if we can just revert to ye olden way of searching? simple things like: searching actually find the stuff you're searching for. and: list of items found arrangeable by date/alphabetically (just like any normal window in osx). also, is hitting apple-f essentially just bringing up spotlight in its own window, or does this search function differ at all? sorry to hijack the thread, but we suffer from the same problems. thank you!
pb12 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

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