[Hippy]

you can have it default to search for thread titles but you will still have the drop window..
even remove the option to Show Results as Posts
if you like

you edited your navbar template to this

<span class="textboxcontainer popupmenu">
				<span class="popupctrl"><input type="text" value="" name="query" class="textbox" tabindex="99"/></span>
				<ul id="navbar_search_options" class="popupbody popuphover">
					<li>
						<label for="cb_navsearch_titleonly"><input id="cb_navsearch_titleonly" checked="checked" type="checkbox" name="titleonly" value="1" /> {vb:rawphrase search_titles_only}</label>
					</li>
					<li>
						<label for="cb_navsearch_showposts"><input id="cb_navsearch_showposts" type="checkbox" name="showposts" value="1" /> {vb:rawphrase show_results_as_posts}</label>
					</li>
				</ul>
			</span>

so change that code to this so the search for thread titles is check by default..

<span class="textboxcontainer popupmenu">
				<span class="popupctrl"><input type="text" value="" name="query" class="textbox" tabindex="99"/></span>
				<ul id="navbar_search_options" class="popupbody popuphover">
					<li>
						<label for="cb_navsearch_titleonly"><input id="cb_navsearch_titleonly" checked="checked" type="checkbox" name="titleonly" value="1" /> {vb:rawphrase search_titles_only}</label>
					</li>
					<li>
						<label for="cb_navsearch_showposts"><input id="cb_navsearch_showposts" type="checkbox" name="showposts" value="1" /> {vb:rawphrase show_results_as_posts}</label>
					</li>
				</ul>
			</span>

hope it helps