I certainly appreciate the 'local' aspect of CL, no doubt. I could even understand a desire on their part to be 'pro-community', as opposed to 'pro-sales'.

Here's an example of a search that underscores my desires in this case.

My mom wanted a van.
A Ford van with a V10, late 90's or early 00's, low mileage, and a particular price range.

My (manual) CL search encompassed nearly all of California and eventually we found a van worth looking at near LAX, about 350 miles away.
That van should not have been so hard to find! Even with copy-paste, there was still a bunch of flipping between CL-sites and selecting various search terms.

*sigh*