Hey John,
Great post.  I agree that some variation of online searching will eventually win out for most searches.  I would like to see safeguards in place to monitor who is accessing the information.  In my home county, all users must register, and the recorder can monitor the use.  In most counties in Ohio the access is open and unmonitored.
I agree that the simple search will eventually be something that we can no longer compete in.  However, we can still compete in the complicated search.  I do find it amusing in a way that people complain about the outsourcing of our work, and clients concidering only price,  then they go to Wal-Mart to save money and forget about the small companies that, like us, are trying to compete on an unlevel playing field.  Doug