Tommy,
I myself was born within greater London and I've lived on 3 seperate occasions in Essex. NEVER would I travel to LCY, on one train, off another train, perhaps the tube, and then the DLR humping bags/suitcases all the way and all for an overpriced flight from an airport I don't even want to be at!!!
I'm not suggesting such a route is impossible BUT there are only so many people that want to travel from/to the SW each day, NQY already has a LGW service, if a LCY service also operated then one route would poach passengers from the other route probably resulting in the failure of both routes which I summise goes some way to ASW's failure ..... they tried to develop too many SW routes with some route(s) poaching passengers from other route(s) resulting in less than optimum, across the board, load factors.
I see it a lot in these regional airport threads, NQY airport is struggling, it will never earn it's way, and all of a sudden people are getting carried away with routes here, there and everywhere.