"cluttered left rail" ... sure, cluttered with things that get a helluva lot of use & happen to be located in a very convenient place.
they have related searches (in bold), search history & narrow by region down the left...
all but the last go in the "cruft" category imho,
google have the different search types, location, region, chronological stuff then "more", no idea how much customisation they do though ... i'm not a google-fanboy but at least they are all useful _to me_ & better designed