Laura
I don't find an issue with it. What were people complaining about?
I had some trouble finding out what all the sorting options meant though: what the difference is between 'newest' and 'latest'? And between 'relevance' and 'top'?
After some experimentation I guess 'newest' means that the topic is created last, and 'latest' that the topic has the most recent post. 'Top' seems to mean the most posts in the topic, while 'relevance' is probably based on the amount of times the search term occurs, perhaps combined with other factors.
The software you use might not allow you to change the option names and make them longer (like 'newest' -> 'newest topic'), or even add tooltips. In that case perhaps adding a question and answer to the FAQ might be an option if you'd want to make it clearer.