Why Horoscopes

ever wondered why horoscopes (birth charts) are still in existence. well I did and it didn't make any sense to me anymore. this is not about bashing our old Indian traditions, but it is more of adjusting ourselves to the current trends.
Horoscopes, as we know, is formulated based on the time and day of the particular year we were born. calculating this is no big deal, even I can do it. all you need is a 'panchangam' (general star chart) of the particular year and you are all set to go. but predicting someone's future, based on the horoscope, is a controversial topic (well atleast for me). Its like nutrition and dietics, there are zillions of theories, and all contradict each other. you just can't trust one particular method. and thus people end up visiting scores of astrologers in their life time, eventually spending a lot of money. and whats the fun in life if you were to know your future?
I think horoscope based predictions are mere probablistic methods. all the theories of predictions are definitely based on a database of lives of various people who had similar birth charts. the database is not there, but the theory is definitely in existence. and this had been in existence for more than 2000 years, we have references to horoscopes even in epics like mahabaratha, and silappathigaaram. meaning, all these predictions originated from a society that was entirely different from the one we are in right now. so why bother at all.
another big business is horoscope matching for marriages. it was reasonable a few decades back, when people didn't interact that much. but now the world has shrunk, and open-mindedness is the order of the day. even family backgrounds shouldn't matter beyond a certain extent (a prospective alliance needn't be stopped just because the sister of the bride was a divorcee).
I undesrtand that this a deep-rooted sentiment in the hearts of many people, and shunning it totally is very hard. my only request to them is to sit and think about this, and I bet they will understand it is only for the betterment of the society.