Not really. I often use (incremental) search just to move around, and I don't want the highlight to distract me, especially with a really common pattern. I would consider using it if the highlight disappeared immediately after the search is over, but as far as I know there is no such setting, so I only enable it from time to time.
This just proves that it's really hard to agree on defaults.
Well, the highlighting doesn't start until the search is over (you've pressed enter). I use this to clear the highlighted results when I am done with them:
nmap <C-h> :noh<CR>
Maybe there is a way to make it automatically do that after searching with some sort of timeout. Not sure.
Not really. I often use (incremental) search just to move around, and I don't want the highlight to distract me, especially with a really common pattern. I would consider using it if the highlight disappeared immediately after the search is over, but as far as I know there is no such setting, so I only enable it from time to time.
This just proves that it's really hard to agree on defaults.