New project: Lost and found (simple). Need startup guiding.

I'm starting on a new simple project, Lost and Found on Airport. People can search for items they have lost, and/or send an email about their loss, and the manager can register found items with title and description.

So the questions:

I can do this with standard documents, but there will be around 3000 items pr year before deletion. Is there a better way, other snippets that will do better in this case?

Can the Simplesearch form be set up with a choice list, so people can select items in a category list in the search form in addition to a standard search box?

Will it be possible to let people register, in the database, their lost items from a form on the webpage?

I don't need detailed solutions here, only a quick guide to start with.

Thanks.

Probably best to use a MIGXdb CMP for this, using a custom table. SimpleSearch can search custom tables.

Yes, there can be a front-end form for allowing users to submit forms. Just make sure to validate the POST values, and if you set up a proper CMP with MIGXdb you will have everything you need to use the MODX API to store data securely.