Joseph Hoane raised some concerns regarding the current routing strategy for LN payments which does not rely on any sort of routing table the way mesh networks usually do:

Since routing tables are not part of the architecture how can the sender chose the next recipient so as to effect an efficient path to the ultimate receiver? With no routing table available the next receiver’s connection to the remote ultimate receiver or to the ultimate receiver’s proximate connections is unknown. Even a powerful bridge node will not know an efficient subsequent path and could send the message on in exactly the most inefficient direction. How does choosing an efficient next intermediate receiver not remain a guess, a shot in the dark?

On the discussion that followed ZmnSCPxj provided an explanation for the reasoning behind the current “simple and direct” payment routing strategy.

Lightning payments are forwarded through a network of payment channels between users, but how does every node know where to send its payments?