I completely agree that change detector tests are worse than useless, they often have negative impact.
When designing mutation testing, we have spent most of our time designing suppresion heuristics to avoid generating bad mutants. Some bad mutants fall into the category of change-detector tests, but there are many more categories (see the Appendinx for a taste).
Finally, mutants don't have to be killed, they just point out a potential weakness in the test suite, and it's up to the developers to make that call.
When designing mutation testing, we have spent most of our time designing suppresion heuristics to avoid generating bad mutants. Some bad mutants fall into the category of change-detector tests, but there are many more categories (see the Appendinx for a taste).
Finally, mutants don't have to be killed, they just point out a potential weakness in the test suite, and it's up to the developers to make that call.