Ideally investors can give advice too besides money - it's nice to get two things instead of one. But there is some value to investors who can only provide money, as well as some value to investors who can provide money + advice-distorted-through-skype.
Agreed, most of the investors I've worked with provided zero benefit through advice. Often investors are out of touch with trends, they have their heads in the financial clouds and can rarely get past their infatuation with hockey sticks. Obviously some investors have a clue about the technology, but not in my experience - won't name names for obvious reasons.
