I have checked bags domesticly twice this year and, unfortunately, also got a chance to watch the baggage gods employ that fancy technology, to which you allude, twice as well. And let me tell you, "clueless" and "hopeless" are gross understatements. In fact, the first time it happenned, my flight out of IAD was cancelled but my bag ended up flying anyway (took three days to locate it), ... but I digress. Suffice it to say, I am now much more sympathetic to those people that try to take all of their worldly possessions with them in the cabin.