Hi,
Thank you for your kind words!
Well, I can recommend checking some of the feature you may have missed. First, check the settings visiblity and layout feature. This allows you to set the search settings to a custom position. You can also use the search settings shortcode, if you want to place the search settings outside the search container.
Next, you can create the desired filters. Some items might be stored as taxonomy terms, some others may be custom fields. Generally, category/tag type items are stored as taxonomy terms, so the taxonomy filters should be used for those. Others (like date etc..) are very likely custom fields.