Of course you would think searching through categories and sub categories should bring up the same results but what if a seller has uploaded or sold a heap of items between searches?

Then there is the fact that there are as many different ways to search as there are members then the big difference, different browsers will produce different results.

My point was that there is little point stressing about it or wasting time trying to do anything about it.

If you are listing in the correct categories, filling in as many item specifics as you can and populating your title with as many keywords as you can think of that buyers may search for then you have done all you can and doing searches and worrying about the results is going to do nothing to improve your ebay experience.