[Copernicus]

If you are saying that a "random" physical shuffle would tend to separate hole cards, whereas a generated distribution would not know their prior position, I disagree (on the physical side). To be dealt the same cards twice in a row they are in fact separated between hands...they have become n apart whereas they were together in the muck.

A random physical shuffle will initially separate the cards, but they still have the possibility of returning to n apart (where n is the number of players) and dealt to the same hand, or they could return any other number apart and not appear in the same hand.

I havent noticed any pattern of hole cards repeating online. The only "aberration" that I noticed early on in my online days was an apparent tendency for board pairs to repeat, but I doubt that the occurrences were anything other than normal.