The unpleasantness refers to your words "hilarious" and "priceless", neither of which are reality, but opinions. In terms of being in the middle of nowhere I meant that Stansted's immediate catchment is much smaller than SEN's.
There is no way that SEN will ever again dominate STN as it once did, STN has the infrastructure and the critical mass to continue to prosper. However, there's no reason why SEN can't prosper too albeit at a much lower level of pax than STN.
Manston, on the other hand, is unlikely to ever prosper again unless investment on a gigantic scale is involved. A great shame. I remember seeing Air Ferry and Invicta DC-4s and Vikings there so many years ago but even then the airport struggled.