If it wasn't for this so-called "theatre", I'd have accidentally got on a plane with more than 50ml of toothpaste last week, and I'm sure I don't need to explain the damage that would have caused.
last week i accidentally flew SAN -> DEN with not one, but TWO new full-sized tubes of toothpaste without incident. we were so lucky to have avoided catastrophe.
I flew LAX -> SVO with a large folding knife in my pocket by accident, and somehow they didn't notice.