You sound like a man who has read a lot of newspapers, and we all know the media are very lazy when its comes to reporting on aviation.
Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean they've got lesser quality information than you. No, I don't get my info from newspapers. I've used the airport on a number of occasions, know the local area roughly and know the wider area very well due to work.
The only things that come from any level of media were the 2007 pricing and the claims that the phase 1 runway extension was too short for a fully-laden FR B738.
Unless I'm having serious measurement difficulties I cannot see how the proposed phase 2 extension (to 2288m) can fit without requiring either realignment of roads or closing them while the runway is active.
Completely and utterly disagree with you on the road argument. WAT provides and cheap, fast and comfortable alternative to ORK and DUB. 500,000 people in WAT's catchment.
Fact is that it is now over an hour quicker to get from Waterford City to DUB, whether you agree that it has an impact or not. I think its fairly obvious that it has had.
The flipside is that Waterford is now significantly quicker to get to from Kilkenny, etc.
Good luck finding a contractor to extend the runway to 1850x45 for 1M - the resurfacing at CFN cost over twice that for a shorter runway. Add in the costs of significant new foundations and drainage... try 5M, maybe, if you're lucky.
Should add that based on loads when I used WAT, I'm surprised RE are leaving, can only assume its due to them needing the craft for feeding EI TA at DUB and would be surprised if there wasn't at least WAT-LON running again by the summer.