bear in mind there is no perfect or 100% "fair" way to determine winners in such deadlocks. The governing body has to have seomthing to decide the tie and i think the away goal is a good balance - u encourage the away teams not to go to foreign grounds and "sit out a 0-0 draw". The italians of the old were the masters at these. But now, this opens up the match a little (of cos some teams will still do the park-the-bus tactic la).

How is a penalty shootout "fairer"? the amount of luck in that would be greater.