When applying new filter settings I don't see the reason for having to toggle on the dropdowns. Why can't they all just be open all the time to costumize the filtering quicker than having to first click the text link, then wait for the dropdown load, then select, then filter...?
I agree that the filters/search settings needs to be improved but in the current implementation you really want to load those combo boxes (or at least some of them) only on demand; otherwise, loading the page would take a really long time (depending on the lenght of the combo boxes)
