Sometimes a view will produce only a single result. In such a case, having the search results listed could be a bit redundant and cutting out this step (thus skipping directly to the content) is more user friendly. That is exactly what Views Fast Forward does, without the need to put non-semantical, custom PHP inside your view's header/footer area.
This project is an example of how contrib modules that provide custom field types can write their migrations. It's not currently finished and the architecture may improve.