The reality for a wardec corp is that during your typical target corp's peak hours you can only count on about 10% of their membership being logged in, and maybe half of those being at the keyboard.

So say you are a small, specialized wardec corp that only has one wardec at a time (way back in EVE history this used to be a thing). Your target corp has 50 members. It's prime time so 5 of them are logged in. If locators were changed to tell you if someone is offline then you would still have to give yourself carpal tunnel typing in 50 names to figure out who is on. This is hardly engaging gameplay, even assuming that you would get instant results and not have to wait for the locate to come back. Now say you are a more typical small focused wardec corp which has several concurrent wardecs to ensure enough content for all their members. You would typically be looking at more like 400-500 names that you would have to type to get a picture of the tactical situation. With just locators this is clearly not a feasible playstyle for any but the most severely autistic.

The good news is that a side effect of the general nerfing of both highsec safaris and focused, targeted wardecs is that it has become much easier to plant spies in your target corps, which is the one remaining method of getting quick intel on your war targets. It seems like no highsec corps are even trying to screen recruits anymore. Even so, if you are going to sustain a reasonable number of concurrent wardecs to provide content to a wardec corporation with more than one member, then you will need to have lots of alts out there poking their noses into things at all times and even engaging in undesirable activities like mining to maintain their cover stories. It does not seem reasonable that this playstyle should have to be so alt-dependant. It also doesn't seem reasonable that highsec corps wishing to avoid any losses can easily do so just by not recruiting.

So basically the only avenue left for highsec PvPers who want to enjoy wardecs without an unreasonable time commitment to tedious intel gathering is blanket decs and trade hub camping. The trend has been going this way for years with each successive nerf to this classic EVE playstyle, and the buddy list has been the nail in the coffin.

If we care about wardecs and the positive role they have had over the years in terms of new player retention and providing a fun, engaging playstyle for PvPers in highsec then simply making locators tell you if someone is offline is not going to be adequate. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it would sure be nice if CCP would consider us highsec predators once in awhile when coming up with these changes.

As we watch this timeless highsec activity die I'm beginning to think we should have our own monument in Iceland for all the great playstyles which have been lost to heavy-handed nerfs over the years.