It's definitely more complicated than that. I travel a lot, sometimes to places where borders are dotted lines, cities use a script I can't read, but every hill is "charlie-5" or somesutch... VPNs, public terminals, government networks on .mil.<country> domains, etc.
I have been quite impressed with the improvement they've made in the last year or so regarding these locks. It's probably a sudden change when you've been more predictable before that gets flagged.
Only trouble I sometimes run into is Google Search (or Books?) locking me out with increasingly difficult captchas if you keep running searches for 18 hours straight.
My guess is they get defrauded more often.
The scenario you present is a really obvious risk as phone thieves often compromise those devices.
No, I think it's a huge risk to be stuck somewhere these days without any means of contacting your family or getting emergency money sent to you. Especially if you're in a place that's politically unstable or where helping strangers isn't the norm.
One of these days someone will not be able to get their heart medications or a flight home because of this damn Gmail policy.
This is mindblowingly idiotic. Do they have such a bad vacation policy for their employees that not a single ONE of their engineering managers has experienced the above? Do they just sit in front of their desks for 365 days a year and never leave their country borders?