For what it's worth, the 2000 item limit is a user preference. It can be changed to something else.
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Typically, if someone is getting that many results they probably need to refine their search.
One thing I found interesting is that certain actions pull the full data set, not just the first 2000 displayed items. I know this includes "Download Documents To Compressed File" and "Export List to File". I'm not sure what else works this way.
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Along the same lines, searching within the results searches the full result set, not just 2000 items displayed.
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Tom U.