I am not sure if this is something I screwed up or not, 
but when I select search from the left hand sidebar, the 
search page is pulled up and the group and sort select 
buttons are already filled in. There is no way to
unselect grouping or sorting items.

Richard said:
>remove the lines::
>
>    sort_on python:request.sort[1] or 'activity';
>    group_on python:request.group[1] or 'priority';
>
>which set the default values in both cases.
>
>Note that you may also edit queries using the generic 
editor accessible 
>via the Class List link as admin.

Agreed, but I have (non-admin) users who want to be
able to store a non-grouped listing sorted by time only.

The following bit of html does the trick. It doesn't use
the sort_input or group_input macro's so its a bit fragile.
If @sort or @group are changed to some other names,
then it will have no effect.
<pre>
<tr>
  <th>No Sort or group:</th>
  <td> </td>
  <td> </td>
  <td><input type="radio" name="@sort" value=""> </td>
  <td><input type="radio" name="@group" value=""> 
</td>
</tr>
</pre>

I put this at the bottom of the radio button list on the
issue.search.html page just above the pagesize entry 
block.  With this, I can enable the default sort and 
grouping while still allowing my users to create/edit 
searches to not have any grouping or sorting.

I suggest it be added to the default issue.search.html
page.

-- rouilj