My two cents
I have no hesitation about parents being involved and conducting the research. As a structure, that’s fine. However, I must emphasize that this investigation often focuses on trivia, and often produces heaps of bias and frank lies, rendering all the efforts meaningless. And unless the boy and girl themselves have amazing people skills and midos with a hefty dash of Syatta Dishmaya, we have created a potential divorce with its fallout.
Just what questions are being asked? How about useless ones like, “Tell me about the boy’s or girl’s personality.” Or “What levush does he wear?” “Why did he/she go to that camp?” Or another favorite joke, “Does he plan to sit and learn?” After answers to such questions, we know nothing that addresses preparation for marriage, or we have pat answers that are uninformative or plainly dishonest.
Do we know how either party deals with adversity or challenge? Are they groomed for lives of dependency, as our kollel system preaches? Do the kids have a spiritual connection or are they just robots with compliance to the community and a helping of chumros to impress others? Do they resolve conflict, or are they apt to find petty disagreements as threats to their dignioty or sense of control?
It is often that a boy or girl have life goals that differ greatly from the parents’ aspirations. Even with proper research, we are set up for conflict and trouble. No, I don’t believe kids generally do good research. But parents are not a whole lot better. The divorce rate in our community has jumped much higher than it’s ever been. One of many reasons is the dearth of accuracy in information available to the two sides. And without a huge amount of Syatta Dishmaya, it would probably be a lot higher.