I still think much of the literature is full of fantasy and bizarre guesswork. But in any case scepticism is important when dealing with something this vague and little known - so long as it's balanced and open scepticism and not blank hostility pretending to be cool objectivity.
It may be worth recalling the weird ideas people used to have about electricity and magnetism before modern scientific knowledge developed. The attaching of weird ideas doesn't necessarily invalidate the basic core of observations.
Personally, I'd welcome detailed and scientifically structured research into dowsing in general and also into ley lines.
My copy of Alfred Watkins' Ley Hunters Manual arrived and I'm part way through it. Very basic but sensible stuff written by someone obviously not prone to flights of fancy. The Introduction is written by John Michell and he says that Watkins avoided contact with the occult himself, but 'was well aware that there was a deeper significance to leys than could be expressed by supposing them to be ordinary traders' and travellers' routes', an idea he says that was taken up by many of his followers.
He quotes from Watkins' TheOld Straight Track...'I feel that ley-man, astronomer-priest, druid, bard, wizard, witch, palmer and hermit, we all more or less linked by one thread of ancient knowledge and power...