Actually, there is a "search downloads" that is in the works as well.
But yes, this site is much more "forum" oriented, as this site (like our sister sites) is more about community. What you see on our other sites is that in the Released Interfaces forum, there is a thread by every mod author about their mod, linking back to the download, where folks can give and take back and forth. We are trying to encourage the mod authors to do the same here, it's the basic intent behind that forum. We think that folks want somewhere where they can talk to the mod authors when they have questions, suggestions, problems, whatever. We try to provide "full service", not just "here's the mod, now go away and don't bug us, if you have any problems, tough, try to track down the mod author on your own". I'm not saying that the other sites (ala Curse-Gaming) do that, I'm just saying that we've already got it set up with that in mind, as it has proven over the years, on our other sites, to be a very very popular way to present the community.
This site is also very dedicated to supporting the mod authors as well as the end-users, which is why there is a complete section of the forums dedicated to "Author Discussion". It's an area where the mod authors can talk about the nitty gritty details of how to do things, as opposed to the "regular" forums (for lack of a better term) where the end-user doesn't care about the nitty-gritty, they just want it to work.
We could consider re-arranging the Download Area, although I'm not sure what would be better. Suggestions for the site are
always welcome though, we've even got a section on the board specifically for that,
here! If you can suggest a better way to arrange the categories, please do! We may or may not follow up on your suggestion(s), but we always appreciate hearing from folks on things they'd like to see and ideas of how we can do things better.