Lonewolf, you don't have to be respectful to the Economist, although it does usually provoke some thought at least.
And they do have a point that this repeated misplacing of large airliners is getting to be a bit of an embarrassment.
But, if you want to talk, you need power, and when you most want to talk, you may not have any. A location and direction at last power would at least have been helpful in the cases of AF447 and today.