Clearing Results

Yes, that’s the way it works now.

Personally I prefer to add the search form to the Members directory or, better yet, as a widget in a sidebar. But you can add a link pointing to your search page with a code snippet like this:

add_action ('bp_before_directory_members_content', 'new_search', 20);
function new_search ()
{
?>
	<p class='new_search'>
	<a href='https://your-search-page-url-here'>New Search</a>
	</p>
<?php
}

This adds the New Search option, which works great, but the Clear option remains, no?

Yes, the Clear link remains.

To remove it, you have to edit the plugin file bps-search.php and delete the line 114:

echo "<a href='$action'>". __('Clear', 'buddypress'). "</a><br/>\n";