Well Joe - I've just come from the PagisPro Suite pages at ScanSoft, and frankly it's a lot like visiting Microsoft. I can't tell what their product actually is. It appears to be a "suite" of software programs, but I can't tell what's in the box.
It looks like they've got pieces of OmniPage Pro in the Pagis box. OmniPage Pro is what came with my Epson scanner, and it's very good for selecting what you're scanning and what "format" to scan it to. It includes a fair OCR capability, and will probably do most of what the PagisPro suite did for you.
I believe that OmniPage Pro was part of the bundle with the Canon scanner you "selected" and with the alternate that I suggested.
The Pagis suite also appears to have at least some pieces of TextBridge (which ScanSoft bought from IBM not too long ago), which is arguably the best OCR program for "plain text" conversion around. You may not get quite the OCR capability (in OmniPage alone) that you had in Pagis - if your Pagis version had a fairly complete TextBridge wedged in; but for most of what you're likely to do with it, the difference would be marginal.
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like virtually everything that was in your PagisPro Suite comes in the box, under different names maybe, with the Canon scanners. (Although I'd still go for the Photoshop Elements that comes with the D1250U2F, as the replacement for the Pagis "Photosoap.")
Other than the hood ornament and what note the horn's tuned to, you're not likely to find a scanner that's much better (or worse) than the Canon.
I don't have a really good answer for scanning up to the spine in books, but you could look at: