Well I'm an idiot - the fulltext index on page_text was missing from a default installation. It didn't break searches but probably slowed them down tremendously. Also set engine to MyISAM on page_text to avoid cryptic error messages from MySQL.
/**
* $Id: editor_plugin_src.js 162 2007-01-03 16:16:52Z spocke $
*
* Experimental plugin for new Cleanup routine, this logic will be moved into the core ones it's stable enougth.
*
* @author Moxiecode
* @copyright Copyright © 2004-2007, Moxiecode Systems AB, All rights reserved.
*/
/* Dummy file since cleanup is now moved to core */