Earlier quoted context omitted.
The OP doesn't make this absurd claim (search is how you discover things, it can't be the opposite)
Forgive me, but you must have only skimmed the OP. It is quite explicit. > [Search] kinda works when you generally know what you need or how a feature you want could be called. But really not when this is your first rodeo.
It's also wrong, for example, you can discover all the file operations by typing in "file" in the search box even if it's your first rodeo
Also, search box can list all the commands as some commands palettes do in other apps, so you can just scroll to discover 100% of listed commands. It can also show categories, that's, for example, how I discover 100% of commands for some plugin by typing its name and reading the list of commands in the search results
Btw, this problem doesn't go away with the menu (like mentioned in another thread): it's hard to discover by looking through a huge nested list, especially when this list is poorly organized like in Gimp, and incomplete, and not context dependent
So no, search is on the same side of discoverability, and the op doesn't claim otherwise, that's your mistaken interpretation