Your objection has merit, but this discussion seems to be focused on "what should we do going forward". While we currently suck at good & economical long distance transmission, this hardly seems to be based on physical limitations. Thus, if it is a worthy goal, we can & should guide our economies towards mastering that tech and driving prices down, kind of like we did with e.g. solar panels.

I'm especially eager to hear more about developments in / experiences with UHV DC lines, like in this ieee.org article + discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19295838