Hello Helga,
I know for all our searches that are not just a lot in a subdivision, we check the map to verify the legal.  It is what I was taught to do thirty years ago.  I understand Lisa's frustration with pulling plat cards though.  We only have a bit over a million population in Franklin County, but a lot of the plat cards are misplaced.  We are fortuate to have a backup set that the recorder lets us access.  Our maps on the other hand are pretty easy to bring up by computer and copy.
Regarding what could hurt a refi without checking the map, I had just such an occurance last week.  I was doing a search on a property that had just been foreclosed on.  Reading the legal, I noticed the parcel was only fifteen feet wide.  The last four deeds had been in error, and left out a second legal that described an additional fifty feet.  The legal has been wrong since 1957, yet the auditor had been transfering the entire parcel.  Whoever had done the search for the mortgage that was foreclosed on failed to notice that the legal did not match the map.  The lender is now the proud owner of the east fifteen feet of the property they thought they were foreclosing on.