CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

The "Add Profile Field" display is newer - and I think better since it keeps the custom fields sorted with the other fields by field label (and then appends the custom field data set title for "clarification"). The Search Builder dropdown should be fixed to at least sort properly (and ideally to present the custom fields in the same way as profile). HOWEVER, their approach to the field hierarchy is different. The profile field form exposes the shared "Contact" fields separately from fields specific to a contact type (e.g Individual). Search Builder puts all fields which apply to Individual (including generic Contact fields) under the Individual "category".

In recent discussions about a new Profile form builder - there was a bias toward using the Search Builder approach (i.e. show ALL Individual + Contact fields under Individual category).

IMO given the probability of some major changes in Profiles for 4.3 (which hopefully could include a good underlying method for retrieving a field list) - might make sense to hold off (or just do simple patches to fix sort order and Custom Field Label :: Data Set Name in Search Builder).