What's going on with Google.co.za South Africa's search results?

This month and last month have been a constant battle to understand what it is that Google are trying to achieve. With fluctuations in rankings, fluctuations in visual elements and just permanent updates on Google, I'm talking Google.co.za, I'm not quote sure what the SEARCH BEAST is up to...

This morning, I logged onto Google.co.za and I noticed that the search results are now highlighted in a BLUE box, giving us a SNAPSHOT of the website as you hover over a Magnifying lens to the right of the search result:



Google.co.za South Africa, starts displaying organic search listings with a difference.

 So, what is this search giant up to?
Why all the sudden changes and dramatic results updates. I thought that Google Caffeine was going to be this big ban roll out but it looks like it's taking a couple of months to start rolling everything out.

Something that's a little more disturbing is the varying organic search engine optimization results we're getting on "The Web" vs. "Pages from South Africa". A very generic search result for "insurance" will give you a good indication of what I mean:




Results for "insurance" search on Google.co.za (The Web)

 And then look at the results we got from "Pages from South Africa", is this reasonable? I mean surely a search in South Africa, is a Search in South Africa, why the heck is Google giving us conflicting search results?



Google.co.za search results for "insurance" (pages from South Africa)

 It seems as though Google don't know what they want. Google, we want the old Google back. Isn't there a saying that goes, "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it?".

Google - Directory or Search Engine?

After reading an article on Converseon.com http://blog.converseon.com/2010/08/13/google-removes-organic-results-in-local-tests/ I found myself deep in thought and quite frankly unable to do more work... "not always a bad thing".

According to latest reports Google have been doing some testing on displaying local search results. This left me with some questions that maybe you our readers can help me answer...

1. A bold move?
2. Do people want to use Google as a directory?
3. Are people already using people as a directory?
4. Does this mean the end of SEO?
5. Are Google possibly looking to incorporate a directory type listing into their NEW Google Caffeine look and feel?

We'd really love to hear your thoughts on this and whether you think this is the way forward for Google?