If someone is somewhere that there is 0 reason for them to be recognized or know anyone then many background features will not work. Traveling far and wide happens all the time at mid to high levels, sometimes even low levels.
Since most of the backgrounds
do not actually require you to be recognized as an individual--only as a person who belongs to a specific social group--you are, once again, reading the backgrounds
wrong.
To compare, take a look at the Athlete from Mythic Odysseys of Theros:
You have attracted admiration among spectators, fellow athletes, and trainers in the region that hosted your past athletic victories. When visiting any settlement within 100 miles of where you grew up, there is a 50 percent chance you can find someone there who admires you and is willing to provide information or temporary shelter.
See that? That gives a range and a chance that someone actually recognizes you as a specific person.
Other backgrounds, such as the folk hero, do
not have that limitation:
Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.
There's no range limit, there's no percentage chance, nothing. Why? Because people don't have to recognize you as a specific person. They just have to recognize you as a character archetype.
And indeed, the entire purpose of the background was that this is something you did before you were an adventurer, you are assumed to have given up that life in order to become an adventurer. A folk hero stays in their village and either lives off their fame or continues to do heroic things for their village. You don't do that--you have left the village and that lifestyle behind.
Again: I don't care what you do at your table. But you are declaring the backgrounds to be
objectively bad, and you are doing so based on incorrect information.
Since I explain how I use backgrounds, and grant other likely more useful usage it's never an issue. If that means I'm a bad DM in your opinion too bad.
So hey! Why not say what your "more likely usage" would be? In all this time, I don't think you've ever explained how you actually have replaced these features.
But the point I was making is, you specifically said "mother may I" with a DM was bad. But if I were your player, I'd have no idea what you would allow and disallow. How am I supposed to know what you would decide is illogical? Do you have a list of things you disallow and a promise that you're not going to add to willy-nilly? Or would I have to always worry you're going to remove or nerf an ability?
