[tmedwards]

Mostly just for my own curiosity:
As has already been pointed out, just clicking search will yield all packages for you, is the "Search with no terms specified to browse all packages" note that poorly placed?

Now, on to the real reply:
My hope at the time was that the database would become large enough to make searching the obvious choice of interface, and yes I was apparently being very overly optimistic. Regardless, I'm not going to have two separate interfaces to the database, that is the path of madness, so we're sticking with the search page, although it seems that some tweaks may be in order.

What if I were to invert the search, so to speak, and make it sort of a filter instead. The default view of the database would be an unfiltered listing of the entire database, the same as if you entered an empty search now. You could then use the search/filter controls to narrow that list, if needed. I assume that would be an acceptable modification to the interface? (everyone/anyone)