Well, the person is inferring server load as the reason based on this bit: "and because this change enables us to deliver search results faster." Wildcard expa

Well, the person is inferring server load as the reason based on this bit: "and because this change enables us to deliver search results faster." Wildcard expansion can be very expensive and can have a significant impact on average query latency, both by skewing the numbers and by blocking other queries. That doesn't mean that disabling wildcard searches is the necessarily the best option, though. Typically you would just stop the search if there are too many results to consider.