Exchanges that matter...

As is, practically all Internet traffic is long-haul.

Folks doing part-time telecommuting are likely to generate traffic
with very high geographic locality; unfortunately, in a lot of cases,
because of routing nonoptimalities, they wind up generating
"long-haul" traffic instead..

Yes, although most employers either provide their private dial-in
facilities or get a good "package" deal from a local ISP on behalf
of its employees.

Still, Web constitutes the bulk of traffic...

I do not argue that local exchanges between regionals are entirely
worthless; it's that they won't have large impact on what happens
at "large" exchange points (or private interconnects).

--vadim