(Core Set newbie here, so take with pinch of salt)
This is one of those cards that seems essential when you start playing, because why would you ever do something dumb like run into a server without knowing what's there? Then as time goes by you realise how much this approach is slowing you down and costing you.
- Best-case scenario, you're spending a click and a credit after an Account Siphon or similarly tasty run event to get information on a card that's bugging you. You have it as a backup for when running a server could mean the difference between winning points or leaving yourself broke and/or flatlined.
However...
- In a lot of beginner cases (well, my case) you're spending at least half a turn, often more, gingerly pacing around the edge of all these servers like a corgi on a diving board, never running until 100% sure you can do it safely. The amount of time and credits wasted on this (mostly from breaking HQ ICE) builds up really quickly and it takes away from other more threatening things you could be doing.
What I ended up learning from this card was that rather than spending many clicks to check if a server is dangerous, you could spend fewer clicks checking and getting through it.