I for one am glad they have stopped searching the first person who got in line and are selecting somebody from the first five or six. It became way too easy to get around just by being the second or third person in line, then you were pretty much guaranteed not to be picked. It's totally useless if you know where to stand to get picked or not (as a flyertalk person was quoted in USA Today on Friday saying how to avoid being searched at the gate).

While I agree they should be useless, the fact they still from time to time find things that were missed at the first check prove they are not totally useless.