Ok thanks for the tips!
After rebuilding the index and making sure that all the "essentials" were check-boxed, same result behavior.
I think what's causing it is (at least for me, 10.6.8) that in system -> preferences it is named just "accounts" so when I search for accounts, I see this:
http://twitpic.com/dq74kc (sorry, there was seemingly no easy image upload feature in this forum?)
and when I search for user, I see this:
http://twitpic.com/dq74jb
(of course, whenever I want to edited a user, I search for user, then have to remember "oh yeah, it's called something else" so I guess something like hints would help in this case).
Cheers and best wishes!
-roger-