It's funny, my group came to the conclusion that locate object is one of the most useless spells in the game. 1000 ft is an incredibly short range, so it doesn't obviate the need for research. Anything worth casting it to find is likely going to be (a) something you aren't already intimately familiar with, and (b) in a place where you can't walk in a straight line to it.
So you've somehow found yourself within 1000 ft of the mcguffin (using means other than the spell), which happens to be unique enough for the location so the spell shows you the way to the Holy Avenger (which you happen to already have seen) instead of the rusty POS carried by orc #34. Since it only provides straight-line direction instead of telling you which direction to turn, and doesn't also tell you distance, you need to be a trig expert to know whether the mcguffin being "that way" is on the other side of the dungeon, or the other side of the wall. Since its duration is Concentration, the spell is vulnerable to all the encounters between you and the mcguffin, either due to damage or being forced to cast another Concentration spell to resolve the battle.
Finding your own stuff is probably the only use for the spell, so if you're really fond of that tactic, I suppose this spell is problematic for you, but for virtually any other use (would you really cast a spell to find any old <object of a particular type>?), I think you're perceiving the spell to be better than it actually is.
