short name resolution

[Brian Noecker]

With multiple subdomains a.foo.com, b.foo.com, c.foo.com,
d.foo.com....z.foo.com, resolvers need to have search list in order to
specify which zones to look through to find specific names via their short
name "bob".  

Is there a better way internally to allow users, especially those in support
roles who access computers in all domains, to find resources by their short
names w/o use search lists?  Co-workers have said in pervious jobs they've
been able to go w/o using search lists but I can't see how this is possible
without introducing high latency while searching through all the zones
a-z.foo.com.

Is this a caching server solution?

Thanks in advance.