I thought I'd hop over to macosxhints.com and yes: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050501162147222&query=set+command-f - there's an article that at least lets me set the default command-f window to finding by name. Now can I have a tip for killing Spotlight in inline folder search? That possible? 
Either way. The trick works for me. Had to play a little with the window's defaults in that tip, change the default search term the author uses and get used to "command-f" instead of using inline search. But it works...

Either way. The trick works for me. Had to play a little with the window's defaults in that tip, change the default search term the author uses and get used to "command-f" instead of using inline search. But it works...