I think the issue with the GDP is that it's kind of a jack of all trades, master of none. It has a lot of uses, none of which it excels at. Those who would replace it only consider one use of it. And furthermore they try often to shoehorn their politics into the replacement.

A few uses of the gdp: How well are the people doing? How much slack is there in the economy - if we wanted to focus on essentials how much luxury productions could be changed into necessities production? How much trade power do we have - if we want to import something, do we have anything desirable to export in return? Maybe there are more.