Couldn't you alter the PHPs?
Actually, it's because of a default fulltext setting in mysql being ft_min_word_len=4.
So I changed the default setting to =2, re-built the indexes and restarted the mysql server... (actually the mysql server stopped, but wouldn't restart, which is why I had to bounce the server tonight... sorry if you were posting anything and got errors).
Now the default setting shows ft_min_word_len=2, but I still can't search on 2 characters. I'll keep looking at it and let you all know when it's working.
Sorry for the reboot, and thanks for your patience! I'm confident that we'll soon have 2 character searching enabled.
offroadgeek