Acashic records vs. separate spells

[Baalz]

The other consideration to is that AR gives you magic diversity. It allows you to search in paths you otherwise couldn't, which will often yield indie mages with those paths. AR is an important way for ie EA R'yleh to get diversity both in terms of magic paths and in terms of land mages. It can also be quite useful when you have mages who can use the gems but not remotely site search - ie F1 mages who could crank out lightless lanterns. The economics also are quite different if you have, say, a completely unsearched wasteland/swamp with no magic sites showing vs a farmland with a farm of plenty. Not economical if you want to blanket all your provinces and just plan alchemizing random gemtypes, but with a bit of leverage it can be quite useful. All in all, AR is not a default "goto" spell, but there are plenty of cases where it's the spell you want.

[Illuminated One]

Hmm, at 20 gems (unless you're counting pearls as two gems ) I'd say it is feasible on high gem settings.
Remote searching every path = 14 gems, so you pay 6 gems more. If you find a site earlier than with normal site searching it can pay off.
In high settings you are bound to find good indie mages/discount sites that way.