I'm about done building an ajax member search component that includes a radius search, dependent drop down location selectors, and tokenized autosuggest boxes. The UI is modeled after the Facebook member search function. Just change a value in the search form and the members list instantly changes accordingly.
It's currently set up for my field structure but am going to try and build in some backend params in order for others to change the column names to match their own fields.
Anyway, if you'd like to take a look at it you can see it at
www.erecoverydev.com
, you can log in with username:test password:test123, click on the test tab and click on the "Go to full component" link. I'm playing around with building this in both a plugin form as well as a component which is why there's a tab but I don't have the plugin near ready yet.
IMO the member search functionality is critical to a successful community site and CB just doesn't have a good modern option out there yet so hopefully this will help fill that gap.
I currently just have the location data for the US, but once I get the component finished I'm going to try and broaden that out to Canada and other countries.
I'll post something here in the forum once I have it ready for others to use.