It was my experience as well until recently. To reproduce, try searching few terms on google.com, not using the address bar but on the actual site, quit, go to

It was my experience as well until recently. To reproduce, try searching few terms on google.com, not using the address bar but on the actual site, quit, go to the site again, enter the input section and it suggest you past searches. If it didn't try entering the first letter of a term you searched for.