I've found Feedly quite good - better in fact than I ever found Google Reader. I'm sure you have already tried it, but if nothing else, I'd be curious to know why you found it wanting.
That's the one I use. That's what I had in mind: doesn't reliably keep track of what's read and what isn't, has a bunch of add-on search functionality that prompts to upgrade. I'm not doing deep text search, I'm typing the name of the feed because I can't remember where I put it in the folders they mandate when I add something new.
