The general agreement was that the alert system should not be networkwide, rather it should be software specific and up to the developers of their respective software to alert their users of ongoing events.
Right, so why hasn't that been implemented?
I do understand the possible risks/vulnerabilities and the reason for removal of that alert system, but I still feel a void.
Yes, this was the point of my post. I understand the reasons for removing the previous alert system, but why wouldn't you have alert systems in each software client?
The # 1 complaint is that it's very hard to get people to update their clients. If you have a large, very noticeable alert system you avoid this problem almost entirely!
I'd argue that out of all bitcoin development going on, this is probably the most important. Because if you're going to get any other updates/changes through, you need to actually inform people of them in the first place!