RE: How to select one of the buffers that match a substring in "switch-to-buffer"?

[Drew Adams]

> I already have icomplete enabled.  It's useless if you've typed a
> substring that doesn't represent the start of the file name.

GNU Emacs specifically deprecated IswitchB in favor of Icomplete mode.
Perhaps they were wrong to do so?

Icomplete mode is supposed to be as featureful as IswitchB.  If you
find that this is not the case, please consider filing a bug report
or enhancement request.  Use `M-x report-emacs-bug' to do either.

> Icicles appears to be closer to what I need.  I'll have to use it a
> bit more so my fingers remember whether this gives me what iswitchb
> gave me before.

Also: You can still find IswitchB here: 
http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/*checkout*/emacs/emacs/lisp/iswitchb.el
The fact that it is no longer distributed with Emacs does not mean
that you can't still use it.