[Animats]

Their system isn't capable of extracting complex info such as executive names and ages, which is what the requestor wanted. The API only does the easy stuff, returning fields from XML.

Edgar Online was sort of a data troll. They bought FreeEdgar to make them go away. After the SEC put up their own search engine, Edgar Online was mostly unnecessary, and it was sold to RR Donnelly. There's also "secinfo.com", which someone runs as a spare-time activity and does about as much as Edgar Online. There's no need for a pay service to get this free data.