And we DO live in desperate times. The physical frisking seems to be more necessary and accurate than the scanners, based on what you wrote about the Israeli guy who said he could pack plastic explosives and they would never know. If that is so, physical close frisking would seem to be necessary.
I for one, am not travelling anywhere any time soon. If enough people were to stop flying, btw, a) the pricing would come down and b) they would have to find another way to accomplish this end.