Naming is a huge issue with NetSuite in general: the field names in a form are different from saved search result columns, and may be different still in SuiteAnalytics Connect, not to mention there are two data sources that don't agree with each other on naming. It's just confusing, and it would be so much simpler if things were consistent.
As for replicating saved searches in SAC, NetSuite does implicit joins of all List/Record field in saved searches, giving you the Name field of the joined list or record type instead of the foreign key, which is a big time saver. With the SuiteAnalytics Connect you get only the foreign key. You have to know what table it joins to, and which column is the primary key to perform the join on. With some persistence, though, you can replicate most saved searches, but you have to explicitly perform all of the joins yourself. If you are comfortable with SQL and joins, you should be fine.