I contacted the author and he pointed to the "-a" option that controls
the search behaviour. I found the "-A" option to follow my expectation
of a forward and backward search,
-a or --search-skip-screen
By default, forward searches start at the top of the displayed
screen and backwards searches start at the bottom of the
displayed screen (except for repeated searches invoked by the n
or N commands, which start after or before the "target" line
respectively; see the -j op‐ tion for more about the target
line). The -a option causes forward searches to instead start at
the bottom of the screen and backward searches to start at the
top of the screen, thus skipping all lines displayed on the
screen.
-A or --SEARCH-SKIP-SCREEN
Causes all forward searches (not just non-repeated searches) to
start just after the target line, and all backward searches to
start just before the target line. Thus, forward searches will
skip part of the displayed screen (from the first line up to and
including the target line). Similarly backwards searches will
skip the displayed screen from the last line up to and including
the target line. This was the default behavior in less versions
prior to 441.
I don't understand why the default behaviour needed to change.
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