Watch towers and watch tower failure

[The Painted Man]

Dearest fellow players,

Personally, I like watch towers, but I recently ran into a couple of instances where I got no recon from the tower. So, two quesitons:
1) Do other people use them? I know at first I was very against them because it doesn't help against conceal spells.
2) Have other people had them "fail"? I'm guessing it's because it's a L1 recon (which can fail), but really don't know.

Love and hugs,
The Painted Man