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To some extent, I think Sage Advice's usefulness has always been limited by the scope of its mission, that mission being to provide the best possible answer according to the RAW. As I see it most of the questions stem from one of three situations: a) the answer is obvious but the questioner didn't want to take the time to find it, b) the answer is not obvious because of vague or conflicting rules, or c) the answer is obvious but is so broken that the questioner thinks his interpretation must be mistaken. In my opinion, the most valuable response to "b" and "c" is to give the designers' view of what the rule ought to be -- doesn't really matter what the rule "is" if the rule isn't working. (And with regard to "a", the proper response is to ignore the question as it won't help anyone except the person who asked about it.)

Just to be clear, this isn't a knock on the designers, just a suggestion for tweaking the mission of the column in a way that would make it more relevant for gamers. I understand WotC doesn't want Sage Advice to be official errata, and that's fine -- just treat it as the kind of "behind the curtain" stuff we saw in the preview books, sage "advice" from a seasoned designer rather than anything that will bind the company going forward.

I would agree that however useful one sees the column, it's become somewhat less useful as gamers try various degrees of 4e conversion in their homebrew campaigns -- especially now that D&D Experience has given us enough to make a credible attempt at so doing.