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Notes -
My understanding as an outsider aligns with yours. The vast majority of murders are either really easy to solve ("he was probably shot by that guy who stole his girl who he's been beefing with for the last three months") or almost impossible to solve ("he could have been shot be any one of 100 gang bangers in the neighborhood"). The genuine who-dun-its are more fun and interesting, but far rarer, and there's probably no systematic way to solve them. At best, you can throw some smart people at these cases and maybe they'll be lucky enough to identify and pursue the right thread. But ultimately, these cases have a terrible cost-to-success ratio for police forces and probably shouldn't be prioritized as a high-level objective. Maybe there's room for private investigators here?
EDIT - Thinking more about it, it makes sense for the FBI to have a system in place for dealing with complex, especially dangerous criminals, like serial killers or Ted Kaczynski types. From a law-and-order perspective, it's probably worth it to spend a lot of money and resources to take these guys out because they set bad precedents and spread social contagions.
Do most serial killers spread social contagions, though? Obviously guys like the Unabomber who've actually communicated with the media are one thing, but it feels like a lot of serial killers targeting the margins of society will never get any meaningful engagement whilst conducting their business. It's only after their investigation, capture and public trials that the real visibility becomes a thing.
I don't know about "most" serial killers, but IIRC, a lot of the most high-profile ones were big in the 1970s and early 80s, and then serial killing went into decline. Like school shootings, it seemed to be partially driven by social contagion.
From my true crime reading, the (sort of) consensus is that
There were probably just as many Serial Killers before the 1970s and 80s, but due to policing practices they weren't identified as serial killers. In fact, if their victims were largely prostitutes or other edge-of-society types, its likely the cops launched no investigation whatsoever.
Starting in the 1990s, DNA evidence made it somewhat actually easier to catch bad guys, but perceptively WAY easier. Phrased differently, people started to think they were leaving testable amounts of DNA all over the place and that cops could just zap it with a magic DNA laser and get an immediate location on a 'perp'. This may have acted as an effective enough disincentive for would-be killers.
The awareness of the existence of serial killers and general lower society wide trust made people (especially younger women) generally more aware of surroundings and personal safety.
When smartphones arrive on scene, not only is everyone always carrying around their own personal recording studio and security camera, they're also carrying around perfect evidence of their social network. If someone kills you today, there's a good chance they're in the top 10 of your most recent text messages.
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It comes down to whether they want the attention; I would be surprised if a smart one could not reliably get visibility by putting culture war bait for the media.
If a killer left a note or sent letters to the media saying he was doing it "for President Trump", do you really think the media would be able to contain themselves from making it a national issue? And the right's reaction when there's hints of a killer being trans or an illegal gives little doubt that they'd be just as impossible to contain if they were in a position of power in the media.
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