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Good advice! No this hadn't been mentioned before.

+1 I wish I'd done this before rather than after. I'd have realized that the majority of the 3,600+ hours on my plane's airframe were put on it while at a flight school from the late 70s to the mid 80s.

While having an FAA CD of an aircraft's records is nice, it is not really an endorsement in purchasing a plane, merely one more bit of information to consider in evaluating your commitment to buy- or not!
The only thing on the CD is the original airworthiness certificate, all registration, and any 337's that were actually sent in to be scanned into the records.
For example, the seller tells you the plane has lived its entire life in dry Arizona or
southern California, but the registration record shows it had been registered in Miami for decades, you might want to know if he is hiding something.
Also, if your inspection of the plane reveals obvious sheet metal repairs or other work, but there is no corresponding 337 in the records, you should consider what else might have been done without documenting it in the logs. You could also find 337's on the CD, but not in the physical logbook, meaning that there are missing entries or lost records and the seller does not have complete logs.
This doesn't mean there is fraud or some shadiness from the seller, he may just be ignorant or the records were sloppy when he acquired the plane.
Another tool is to do a NTSB search to see if there are any surprise incidents in the planes history, and possibly under another "N" number should it have been changed to conceal any damage history. Thats where the registration history on the CD suddenly is very important.
But,you know ...if your plane was damaged in 1973, was repaired correctly and has been flying OK for 34 years, then no worries.
The FAA CD is just another tool to check against the logs.
There is probably twice as much NOT in the logs as there is IN the logs. I have reviewed many logbooks for friends considering buying a plane, and I am appalled how poor the records are, sloppily written and unreadable, errors in TT and SMOH, no maintenance manual or approved data references, " gaps" of several years due to " lost logbooks" and much more.
Thats why a pre-buy by a knowledgeable A&P you trust is important before you hand over your money abd hopefully not inherit someone else's problem.