I'm curious...how many geographic (by legal description) plants/indexes are available out there (and I'm not referring to any 3rd party "online plants" - only those maintained by industry professionals)? 

Or is it just that they are closely held by the title insurance companies with no access for independents?

And how many county clerks/recorders have a geographic index?  None in the Texas counties I cover - other than those that have a computer system with fields for the legal - but that only works for lot/block, not acreage, and only for the time period they have had that system - and I'm not sure if the clerk has any indexing/posting standards. Also it doesn't always work - the computer "times out" or just freezes completely if there are too many filters utilized.

Never having worked outside of Texas and originally been trained on a geographic plant - I just assumed (since it is a far more efficient system) all insurance companies had them. 

Wow that was a tough day the first time I had to prepare a title report using only the grantor/grantee index at the courthouse.  I think I cried!  That was the day the local title companies cut off plant access to independent researchers.  (And it was a great plant!  The first report I did after we switched to that plant my boss called me to be sure I had checked everything - I had sent the order back to the office in 8 minutes!)