I find you have to be very fast to get to include a second or third character. So CDV would need to be entered all together very fast to jump to that entry... but it is possible.
You are correct that you can't set a report to use for the record picker in Grid Edit or make it behave like forms where it searches the list. That may change when they release the new "Spreadsheet Edit" functionality (to eventually replace Grid Edit), but that isn't available yet. More on it should be shared at Empower at the end of the month.
-Sharon