I am using an adaptation of EZSearch to perfom a search across my sites for Vacancies and I am struggling on the following two points:

1. Only return vacancies that have a parent directory called "Live"
2. Only return vacancies if the the current date/time is after a specified Insertion Date/Time which is a field setup on the Vacancy document type.

I know I could do all of this from the search results returned from the default ExternalSearcher however I would much prefer to create a custom index and have only the nodes within the index that fulfill the above criteria. I have successfully created a new index based on the ExternalIndexer and ExternalSearcher and have implemented a GatheringNodeData event, however if I call the e.Node.Remove() method and then re-build the index, the nodes are not actually being removed.

My questions are this:

1. What is the best way of achieving the above?
2. Is a custom index implementing the GatheringNodeData event the best way to go, if so any reason why when I call the remove method, the node isn't actually removed from the index.
3. Can I add these criteria straight into the Examine query, I am not expert in this area so if it is possible any directions would be grateful.