Problems in demo exist in regular game?

[Sandman]

But there should be a way for scouts to be able to search for such units with greatly increased risk of their own detection(but good odds of getting the information before they are killed)

There is a way. Just set your scout to attack the province, with orders to retreat.

That said, an in-game database about units and so on would be quite handy. And the huge difference between a (perfect) battle report and a scout report is disconcerting.