Jabird,
As someone who works for AFKL I can assure you they do know exactly where EMA is, infact KL flew EMA AMS 4x daily for a while.
A key word in hard economic times is dilution. If starting a new route risks pulling pax from a nearby AFKL served airport all you will do is dilute the pax over 2 routes. In times of economic growth the risk is much lower - ie when the decission was made to launch LPL AMS, even though MAN AMS is served.
So while BHX is only just down the road, it will need some serious economic upsurge before AFKL return to looking at the EMA business case.