What you said has a certain degree of truth to it and I agree on how it could have brought positive effect, however, what if the pilot did something aggressive by his own decision? or perhaps the USAF misjudged the situation and engaged with the PLAAF? do we really want to start ww3 over an old hag doing an RP stunt ?There's nothing that says if you shadowed her plane you couldn't do all that stuff afterwards. Had China did the interception maybe even took a picture of Pelosi in her plane then afterwards announced the sanctions and excercise I would image the domestic audience response would have been vastly more favorable, while achieving pretty much the same end result.