OS X V10.7 Lion :: Searching For Specific Text In An Email Chain

I appreciate Mail's efforts to streamline the inbox by grouping emails into conversations based on the subject. However, when I search for a specific string in an email, the search returns the conversation of grouped messages and does not indicate the specific point in the message containing the text. In the case that finally prompted this post, the conversation contained 50-odd emails, since all of them contained the appended text of all the previous exchanges in the chain. I am then left with the task of scanning through 50-odd emails, whether they be separate or all retained within a single message, for the particular string I'm after. And that defeats the whole point of searching to begin with. 

So, am I missing some functionality that overcomes this? Really all I want is for the search to return not just the email, but the location within the email (or chain of emails) where the text is found.  Returning 50 hits because each email contains the text somewhere in the lengthy history of the conversation, without actually showing me where in the conversation the text appears,