* A seperate search field (in the style of Firefox and IE7)
I think that the single text entry (as opposed to separate location and search text entries) is a deliberate design decision.
This is a minor thing. Have I understod it correctly if this feature is reproducible if you create smart bookmarks and i.e. write "<smart bookmark name> <search term> in the address bar? If that's correct I think Epiphany should ship with some default smart bookmarks. For instance i = imdb.com, g = google.com, w = wikipedia.org
Smart Bookmarks are available as the "Bookmark Shortcuts" extension: http://live.gnome.org/Epiphany/ThirdPartyExtensions