The Russian economy (catch all)

[Firn]

Hardly.
Besides, rating agencies are so very useless, nobody "needs" them - other than for rackets. It's about time we establish test runs to expose how useless the financial sector's judgement on risks is. I've seen it myself many times; flipping coins would be quicker, cheaper and in no way inferior to bankers deciding on business loan requests.

Partly true, but it does underestimate the mostly positive impact of ratings as a way to incentivize debtors to better their financial policies to get an easier and cheaper access on the market. It is only a tendency which comes at a price with plenty of counterexamples but it is a positive tendency.

For individuals on the investment side perhaps the best aspect is the ability to party shift responsability - at least you can shout that you bought only A+ or so. As most things this might have a negative impact on the mental effort to analyze the thing itself.

As the service of the rating agencies is relatively cheap compared to market volume I believe that they are worth it. In any case a bad rating might be unfair or plain wrong but it is still a real problem for the business, especially since the spread of tighter rules in entities like pension funds etc. A drop below 'investment grade' forces them to disinvest.