I was just curious why the top Forum Jump drop-down box doesn't have the subcategories listed, while the bottom one does?

The top one is generated by Geoff - he encoded the HTML header you see at the top of every page. The bottom one is generated by the forum software - it is encoded automatically and can't be altered.

This one's been asked enough probably should add it to the FAQ

Thanks for the clarification!

This is as good a time as any to ask if the "search" option could be added to the pull-down menu on the front page.