Look—this is a big, publicly traded business. They have many offices in our market and I am sure each office varies in terms of the quality of work they do and how well they communicate (with you and amongst themselves).
However, their internal processes seem disorganized and they have a natural tendency to be less transparent about progress on your title. In my experience, they were essentially the opposite of Redfin when it comes to reliability and transparency.
My experience is based on being on the buy-side and I had no choice in the decision to go with First American. I can say that based this experience I do not intend to work with them down the road.
You may get lucky and work with a great escrow officer, but why would you take that chance on something like the sale of your house?