Just remember that it was the Strategic Rail Authority, not Virgin, that pulled the plug on Cross Country and Arriva Trains Wales from continuing to serve Liverpool, as well as truncating the Liverpool - Birmingham - Stansted Airport services, so that they became a glorified commuter service. This was done with deliberate intent: those responsible regarded Liverpool as a "declining city"
We've seen a simplification of services over the years, some places gained whilst other lost out.
For example, the "East Anglia - Hope Valley - North West" corridor (which used to have eastern destinations such as Cambridge/ Ipswich/ Harwich, sometimes running via Loughborough instead of Grantham, western destinations such as Blackpool or up the WCML to Scotland) coalesced into a simple hourly Liverpool service - i.e. Liverpool gained an hourly service whilst Blackpool/ Cumbria lost their direct service to Sheffield/ East Midlands/ East Anglia.
But people living in a place don't appreciate the "gains", they can only perceive the "losses" - hence Liverpudlians complaining about the loss of an XC service that was at best every two hours (and, in BR days, used 158s at times) but not appreciating when they gained at the expense of other places.
Same is true of other coastal destinations - Hull and Sunderland have lost a number of longer distance links over the years - Swansea lost its Bristol/ Birmingham services when Wales & Borders remapped the franchises (some of the Bristol services ran beyond there to Devon/ London) - but there's not the same "narrative" made about these other coastal places seeing their range of longer distance services downgraded/ lost.
By definition, the railway simply cannot cater for where everyone wants to go. However hard the industry tries, in all its parts, if you're not willing/able to change trains - despite the availablity of assistance to do so at all major stations - then your options are always going to be limited.
It's about doing what's best for the majority, and providing support for the minority as best is possible, not pandering to the whims of those who would like a once a day service from x to y, because it would suit them.
Agreed.
Some combinations of large places deserve a regular link (e.g. Manchester to London)... some combinations of large places have a link through luck/accident (e.g. Stoke to Watford)... some combinations of places don't have a direct link because there's no way we can link everywhere to everywhere and on a busy railway then increasing the service to one city comes at the opportunity cost of another city).
I'm perfectly relaxed about National Express coaches filling the gap for the kind of "time rich" passengers (pensioners etc) who have all day to wait around for one daily direct service for a journey like Bournemouth to Birkenhead - the railway can't link everywhere and the railway shouldn't try to link everywhere - if that means losing a few passengers at the margins then IMHO it's worth doing so if it means significantly more are attracted to simple reliable patterns.
I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to the kind of elderly passengers who'd be too anxious to deal with a rail journey that will nowadays require multiple changes, but that's a market that National Express can cater for much better (hence the reason that their coach services are a weird and wonderful combination of desperate destinations - good luck to them - they can fill that gap in the market - let heavy rail do what it does best.