@bkelloggsr
I agree, I too do like Opera very much, it works better that Edge in Win11.
The only way to set the address bar search engine is to:
type opera://settings in the address bar ―> scroll down to Search engine ―> beside "Search engine" select Bing from the drop-down menu.
to set your default search engine:
type:
opera://settings in the address bar ―> scroll down to Search engine ―> click on Manage search engines and site search ―> click on the 3 dots to right pf Bing and click on Make default
For me it is a small inconvenience to pay for a quality browser.