>To send a private message, I search the person, see that person's account setup, and click on "send a private message". Is there a shorter way to do this?

For those in your Dashboard monitoring, it's a one click from the private icon next to their name.

If they're online, there is a private icon in each of the online member.

Activating the direct private message sent from the toolbar, will allow you to send a private message directly to a member.

Otherwise, search, as you mentioned, would do it.