How likely would I recommend Cortana?

Not very likely in the present state of mind. The explanation is in the image.

I am not the only one. Many have reported this problem and some observed that although you don't see the characters being typed into the search box they do get registered. Such was not in my case. The cursor stays put.

I could not repeat this behavior. All of a sudden I cannot type-in, but if I bring up the All Programs after some type it registers the text input.