We (the industry) has to address this issue now and ensure that 'black boxes' are interrogatable for years if not decades. It isn't that hard, it's down to cost and the will.
Lemain, I agree there is without doubt a better way to track flights and provide better, faster information (real-time uplinks of location and black box data, etc). However, I postulate that if prior to this someone said a commercial flight in a modern, so far bulletproof airframe, could 'go missing' and not be found in year 2014 after 20 days, it wouldn't sound plausible. Part of the 'hype' about all of this is everyone's (including mine) *need* for information and in real-time.
The unfortunate reality of this is, having seen this happen in numerous parallel industries, and after 9/11, is the vigilance increases for a period (days, weeks, months, years or decades) and then eventually laxes and something happens. Even in this instance, a heavily contested piece of ocean, with undoubtedly immense surveillance, was not being watched at the time.
Airline travel remains one of the safest around, and these events are thankfully rare.