"probably producing the same product offline as online" - not in Texas - you can only search by grantor/grantee online and our releases, assignments, and  docs that have the grantor/grantee name misspelled can only be found by running the property description - a capability only available at the courthouse level.  The problem I have found is the yahoos doing online searches were probably unaware of the features at the courthouse to begin with - i.e., unqualified to begin with but there are a lot of abstractors unqualified out there.