My Evernote did update today, finally...
10.38.1-win-ddl-public (3408)
Editor: v149.0.18202
Service: v1.53.0
and, the issue appears to be fixed, but now I'm having trouble recollecting whether I had tried this particular sequence before, and if so, what the behavior was...
If I go to some random spot in my note and click to place the cursor there, and then click Ctrl+F to get the search box, then type something that takes me elsewhere... I swear just hitting Esc at that point would return me back to the previous spot, which seemed to be annoying and was thwarting my attempts to properly automate something via autohotkey (separate macro prog).
However, now, after this update... hitting Esc doesn't seem like it's forcing page to return to previous spot anymore (woot), so that's good.
And after hitting Esc, if I then try to use the arrow keys to move around, it WILL return me to that previous spot (where the cursor still is)... which I guess is understandable and fine. After all, I hadn't yet clicked anywhere near my search results spot, so EN wouldn't really know where to place a cursor (unless right before the found text, I suppose).
To make it work right, I just need to click somewhere on the page, after hitting Esc, and before attempting to move via arrow keys... and I'll be good, I guess.
So, problem solved, it would appear.
The only thing I'm not clear on, is whether somehow this was the same behavior before the update, and after, but I just misinterpreted what it was supposed to be doing... However, I feel pretty confident it wasn't staying in the new location, even after a click on page.. and that as soon as I canceled (or Esc'd) the search box, it would always return me back to the old spot elsewhere in the note. Imma go with that.. Evernote goofed, and then fixed it. Yeah.