Usually smoke detectors are a 1 in each room (and 1 in the main hallway) thing nowadays.

And as for the hunt for the low battery it is a problem (though usually only one week a year if you install the same smoke detector in all rooms at the same time. And it is hard to find because it emits a high chirp every 30-60 seconds but that chirp echoes throughout the house and is hard to pinpoint (especially if you do have 1 in each room).

But I agree loud and sensitive better than the alternative and you can avoid accidental set offs by not having one located near the kitchen stove, though most of the time bad smoke detector locations are in apartments where you wouldn't have a choice to move them anyway.