Obviously, just anecdata, but I've worked for 10 years in the search area (enterprise search) and from what I've seen search users fall into two categories. 99% of people never use anything besides the search box. If they don't find what they want, they add more words. Even if you show them that what they want is just one extra click they rather try to find some magic incantation to get what they want from search box usage only. We provided advanced options, facets (only pdfs, only author whatever and so on), usually customized with something the customers deemed relevant, but people just don't use it.
The other 1% are the ultra-power users who use every feature you provide and always push for more. They even learned the query syntax for even more advanced searches than possible in the GUI. There was almost no middle ground.
Haha most of the time I fit in the former category.
The thing is, I wouldn't be surprised if users used search a lot in their day to day life. Google Search. Google Images. Google Maps / Waze. Amazon. Windows/OSX. Yelp. Youtube. Your typical ecommerce website (e.g. B&H, REI, ).
Writing words is an action applicable to all of them and it's something people are comfortable and familiar with. I can type in something ambiguous or improperly spelt in Google and it'll give me the exact answer. And if I get nothing, well maybe it's my own fault, so try something different.
Whereas when it comes to facets, users have to mindful of how it differs according to the results, which is something I can remember as a general power user, but not what I would expect from others. From a visual point of view, the facets/filters can be implemented in different ways which further adds to the cognitive load. The way you interact with filters on Yelp on mobile is different than the way they present it on the web. The filters offered on Amazon is presented differently than that of YouTube or Google Images. Certainly, the implementations make sense, but it's an additional thing to remember for that particular app/website.
And so my unscientific opinion is that a good portion of the population prefer to go with the behavior we do the most and we know is consistent across the board, which is search by text.
The other 1% are the ultra-power users who use every feature you provide and always push for more. They even learned the query syntax for even more advanced searches than possible in the GUI. There was almost no middle ground.