Many people hold the view that netsplit detectors are useless, you're not alone! Some help channels on IRC don't even help with them because they deem them to be 'lame'.
I think the fad is just the fact that it makes mIRC do something automatic, and new users to mIRC think that's funky and cool. Personally, if someone sets them to /echo I see no problem with them as it's sort of like customising mIRC, however, I see no point in sending them to the channel.
Regards,
