(TFA author) If it's a really important patent for an individual inventor as opposed to another one to add to the company's portfolio mainly to grow its size, then of course you want to do prior art search. I wasn't talking about the individual inventor's situation as I'm not familiar with it; perhaps you could elaborate on your reasons why your feelings are mixed after the process. I was talking about the situation of a typical company's employee. And yes, it's an "easy legal defense" for a product company to forego prior art search, but it's not an urban legend, it's real legal advice I heard from real lawyers.
The same applies to the lawyer's experience. If you're an individual inventor, you're gonna look for the lawyer with the best experience and the law firm with the best price (and IMO you're right in that the $1000/hour lawyers aren't necessarily the best for you.) If you work for a company, someone will find a lawyer to deal with your stuff and the lawyer will behave very confidently, in a "business as usual" kind of manner, when you explain them the basics and they keep not getting it, and you might naturally assume that's how things are supposed to work, when instead what you should do is push back against whoever set you up with this lawyer and insist on getting one with relevant experience.