Not only are waypoints and intersections useful in terms of direction, but some, like ORTAC, which are in all good GPS' are useful FIR boundary markers.
True enough, but in my experience if you come back from the Channel Islands SVFR/VFR the last thing Jersey ATC will ask you to report is 50 North, not ORTAC. (Mainly, I suspect, because the base of N866 is so low that unless you're happy at <3500' you're in the airway at ORTAC
)
I think
vintage ATCO's point is extremely valid too - in that the "audience" of your FPL is fairly limited even when crossing FIRs (and much more so within the same FIR)
One place where these waypoints are
very useful however is on the AIS website obtaining NOTAM route briefs - you can use waypoints where you cannot use airfields etc (much easier than lat/long or beacon/radial/dme) - Popham is a good example for me - cannot put the airfield in the (AIS) route brief, but conveniently PEPIS is directly overhead
