FWIW, what you describe has never once happened to us with online checkin. No ipad, no one greeting me until I actually get up to the desk.
I have had a CM come out while I'm in line (but they don't know who I am) and then either walk me over to a CM at the desk (to the normal checkin area vs the online area that I'm waiting in) or go get my packet, but I haven't had someone do all of what you've experienced.
The one time we got a totally inappropriate room (which was given to us, I assume, because we were among the last to check in and our room had already been rejected by many others) was when I did NOT do online checkin.
Apart from one room that should never have been in rotation at all (horrid mildew and mold problems through the whole 2 bedroom villa), we've gotten great rooms when doing online checkin.
Our February trip was hinky because of all the systems changes and problems, so half the time they hadn't gotten the CC info via the checkin process, etc etc, so the checkins did take longer than they have in the past or should be expected to take, but that wasn't online checkin's fault...just the system changes and problems that were happening in Feb.