Part of #1332 (end perhaps #151)...
Now with Views in core, we should explore the idea of taking advantage of it and convert the search to a view with exposed filters.
This would allow people to either directly edit the default Search view in order to tweak it to their liking or clone it and create other search views.
It would also expand the ways of extending it with contrib modules that improve the backend (search API) as well as modules that improve the UI (Views).
Recent comments
When there are thousands of links to be listed, it is better to split the map. Otherwise, hreflang is a good choice.
xmlsitemap module generates wrong links for languages
I don't fully understand why someone would need multiple sitemaps for different languages, but you certainly know better. Good luck!
xmlsitemap module generates wrong links for languages
Easy xml sitemap doesnt seem to offer multiple sitemaps for different languages, otherwise it seems a good solution for a single sitemap but then it doesnt make sense to exclude languages at all...
xmlsitemap module generates wrong links for languages