I highlight, "clear search preferences" then hit "go"...then I get a message that it's saving me preferences. What gives?

I don't know, matey.

It seems to work for me. The term "clear" isn't real clear because I don't know what it's clearing to. But it did change me preferences to what had been the original default preferences before I set a different one.

I don't know about the search preferences but I suddenly have a hankerin' for some Lucky Charms.