Are release clauses pointless?

The release clause. I've never understood it. Why would you have a stipulation in a contract that automatically requires you to accept a pre-determined amount for your players? So as to guarantee a fair fee? Hold on, if the fee isn't fair, wouldn't it just be turned down? Why corner yourself into a situation where you have to accept an offer because it says so in the contract, when you could have no pre-determined amount and then just negotiate as you please?

Marco Reus' new contract at Borussia Dortmund contained no release clause. I should hope not! After all, Marco's previous contract had a 25-million-euro release clause in it. That paltry fee would have left Dortmund short of pocket and had a number of suitors licking their lips. So why set up a contract with an amount that would guarantee only seven and a half more million than the price originally paid? Dortmund spent 17.5 million euros on Reus, ironically triggering his Gladbach release clause at the time, but surely they must have thought, having spent that much and looking at his form, that he was going to be worth a lot more than just 25 million euros.

The release clause is not to be confused with the buy-out clause - where the player literally has to 'buy out' their contract (in most cases done by the purchasing club), as Bayern Munich did when they purchased Javi Martinez from Athletic Bilbao in Spain - a country where buy-out clauses are contractually mandatory.

The buy-out clause was more recently in the news when Werder Bremen displayed similar delight to BVB over Reus when their set-piece hero Zlatko Junuzovic signed a new deal that didn't included a buy-out clause. Sporting Director Thomas Eichin even felt the need to stress this point:

The waters of football contracts are too murky for me, but I don't understand why clubs would want to corner themselves with a pre-determined amount that restricts future negotiations and doesn't take into consideration the rise in a player's stock.

Now, if either player does leave (and I think Reus certainly will) they will do so for an appropriate amount and with the grace of the club. Release clauses feel more like an insecurity than an insurance policy, which almost seems ironic in a sport where wealth is the weapon of choice.