I also agree. UFO/XCOM has a frustrating aspect, it's that there's no way to adapt your efforts of land protection : Alien agenda is month-based, so even if you get a hint of which area is targettted by aliens in a specific month, it's no need putting a base there because it will take a minimum of 15 days to build a radar, and in future months this area is not more or less likely to be targeted. So what do you do ? You put your bases in the same places, in every single game, no matter what the aliens do.
Detection ships (with several days of autonomy) make a lot of sense. I've often used the main transport ship for this, but so many times it makes me miss a mission elsewhere because the ship spends hours refueling, or a batteship rushes to your home base while the transport is thousands of kilometers away, with all your best soldiers and equipment....