Hello, i would like Qwant too. We have only choice with USA Search engine. Add new one by default must be good. (Qwant, yandex and some big Search engine around the world.)
I understand why it is blocked (for malware) but opera can work with some other search engine and purpose few not located in USA. Yandex, Qwant is not used for malware. I think the modification is not too long for the developpers. But for lot of people, add shortcut and type always "q" or "yx" is not really good.
Inside Opera Neon, there is chromium engine but not really modified for the settings part. And inside chrome we can change the default search engine.