Ask has done a nice job updating their search pages.
Despite the improvements they’ve made, I’m not ready to switch. Why? I’ve become completely hooked on Google’s BlogSearch and News Search feature that enables me to quickly restrict searches to the last hour, last day, previous week, or previous month. I use this feature all the time now. It’s one of my favorite ways now to watch what’s going on right now and how big a particular topic is at a given time.
So far Google combines the most features I find useful when searching. Do I want more? Absolutely. Search is not done. But, for how I search, Google is still in the lead.