Yes, this is the problem I'm seeing. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to expect all the replies to be loaded, but if only a few replies can be loaded at once, I'd prefer Ctrl+F only query the ones that are.
The problem with the current approach is that: (a) it's startling or "rude", by which I mean it changes a very common action (hitting Ctrl+F) to mean something apparently quite different, (b) the search results don't provide enough context to commit to one, and (c) the search results are quite limited in cardinality -- sometimes I want to scroll to an instance of 'dplyr' a fair way down the thread, and (d) it's inconsistent.
Seems like you're aware of the difference, though.