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pretty much, based on this years experience - wouldn't bother with a survey again - lots of writing about damp (durr, peeling wallpaper) and re-doing pointing / repair on crack in external wall (no sign of water ingress, looks like its about 70 years old), no mention of death trap terrace, cracked roof joist, danger beam holding up living room, fucked drain access etc...
just a 38 page document of niggles you'd expect in a property that had been utterly neglected for 30 years...
lookitsluke
My immediate reactions to the reports of full buildings surveys that have been shared with me was more or less this to be honest.
If you knew very little about buildings or couldn't practically see the building yourslelf, then sure, maybe they are quite useful. If you are are on your second or third property and you gave a good idea of what you are actually buying, I got the impression that they couldn't really help you, and would take longer to produce, contain more words, be harder to schedule, and cost three times the amount but provide pretty much equivalent value for the purpose, i.e. having a disinterested party eyeball the place and to large extent confirm what you had already identified and your expectations of a building that's x years old.
It's an interesting game, sure.