Why are laptop power cords so useless?

The whole point of a laptop machine is to go places where you don't have a permanent installation. The cord won't reach from a baseboard outlet to a table top, or from a wall outlet to the floor, so half the time your transformer is left dangling in midair. Meanwhile, when you DO have a suitable arrangement, the cord is just too long to stay out of the way but just too short to tuck away neatly behind something. What were the designers thinking we were going to do with these things?