Yes, I think we're in agreement: although it's not the _current_ behavior, ideally we wouldn't close the search bar on blur, and wouldn't close the search bar on Enter key.  But again, I think it might be worth doing highlighting in this pull's simpler fashion as a starting point, since it still adds some value.

NJ's change was pull #2314, which changes the location of the search bar in the DOM as I described above.  The problem it poses is not specific to highlighting, it's a general problem with not closing the search bar on blur.