Unfortunately your predictions of gloom and doom will probably come to pass.I recently saw a news cast about a real estate speculator that did exactly what you described. He bought several investment properties sight unseen. He relied on an on line virtual tour. The tax  assesor's info was also online. I am not certain if the tax collector's info was available on line. The idea was to fix and flip the property as soon as possibly. I do not know if he realized that he needed a title search.

I would agree that the days of the traditional title searcher are numbered.