Glad to hear that ABBYY sits at the top.
I think that there are many use cases for the in-built OCR that serve folks just fine (OCRing scanned receipts, bank statements, etc for search purposes). You (and I) have bespoke PDF requirements, work intensively with text to produce professional outputs, and so need high levels of accuracy. We are no stranger to software workaround to get to our desires workflows and outputs. Despite my grumble note above (directed more at the inherent problems of PDF rather than at DT’s ABBYY implementation), I would still wholeheartedly recommend the Pro Edition to my doctoral students. There are other distinguishing features, too, that may be critical for ‘pro’ workflows: see DEVONThink standard vs DEVONThink Pro - #7 by pete31; and here DEVONtechnologies | DEVONthink Editions
As they say, YMMV 