It would be extremely useful if the Jira Create Issue dialog searched not only on Project Name, but also on Project Key when the user is typing to get a match on the Project. It can be extremely frustrating, time-wasting, and dangerous when a Project Name (just a Description field, right?) is changed and email notification of this event is not sent by the person making the change. Why? Because the user will probably not find the Project being looked for since it has been renamed.

Example:

Project Name: Foobar
Project Key: FOOB

Project Foobar is renamed by the Project Lead to "Ribitz" for reasons only understood by the Project Lead.

Another user goes to create an issue in Foobar, starts typing "foob" and nothing pops out! The user then looks around a little and doesn't see Foobar. What's going on? Sound the alarm! Who deleted the Foobar Jira Project?

If the Project matching was also done on the Project Key, the user would have found Ribitz right away, been confused for a second, and then realized what had happened. Or at least the user would have been lead in the right direction.