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That depends on how you define "the states". Is the state the state government or the people of the state? If you the state refers to the the state government, then allowing the state legislatures to choose their senators would increase the likelihood of the States being able to check the expansion of federal power.

If by "the states" you mean the people of the states, then there is no point to having a Senate, because the House already represents them. There is no point to having two houses of Congress that represent the same people. When the Constitution said "states" it referred to the sovereign state governments and it meant for these to be represented in the federal government. Popular election of the senate was a sneaky way of denying representation to any of the state governments so that the states couldn't fight to resist federal power expansion.

The Founders say in the Federalist Papers that the power of Congress was so great that its power had to be split into two houses representing different groups that would check each other. The House represented the People of the US and the Senate was supposed to represent the state governments. (This is why the Senate confirms ambassadors, judges, and treaties and the House has no say in these matters. Sovereign State governments understand the technicalities of these things much better than the average joe. Also, the reason that every state is equally represented in the Senate is to show that each sovereign state is equal.)

The primary purpose of the Senate is still there just as the founders intended. Every state has two senators, from small states with less then one million population to states like NY and California with just under and over thirty million population each. That gives a very substantial weighting toward less populous states in the Senate and in the Electoral College, just as the founders intended, and as was necessary to form the union in the first place.

People here can debate all they care to and cite Federalist Papers or whatever, but one other thing the founders intended beyond any doubt is that the constitution could be amended. And in this case it was, so the founders intent is 1,000% in tact with the 17th amendment.

And nothing will change my mind on this in today's political environment: I trust a vote of the people for US senators far more than I'd trust the members of any state legislature.

We have endless threads here about RINOs and about how Congress and Obama ignore the will of the people, and there is a lot of truth to all of that. But state legislators are no better, and giving them more power is not the answer to anything other than making the voters even less able to do something about a Congress that ignores the will of the people all too often.

I think the notion of allowing state legislatures to pick US senators in today's political environment is one of the dumbest ideas around, now matter what the founders envisioned in the 1790s.