Part of the problem is, there could be thousands of arrests from profiling, but as soon as there is one wrongful arrest or a case where somebody kicks up a fuss about being picked on, the media will be all over it.
The problem with having plenty of arrests is that you might not be picking up terrorists. Guantanamo Bay is a case in point. Thousands of arrests, thousands sent home without charge after years of miserable treatment. More time needs to be devoted to establishing guilt rather than a profiling match.
As Dr Guy said, there won't be that many sent home without charge. If there were, you'd get so many lawsuits about wrongful arrests. I was thinking more in general terms, though, such as people carrying guns in places where they're illegal (or in the UK, stop-checking teens for knives which I can vouch would return enourmous dividends) as much as terrorrists.
In terms of profiling for terrorism, I think it can work very well, but it is always important to remember the convictions of terrorists and it's not all this lust for virgins, it can be driven by hate, envy, anger, despair, or even by sub-normal intelligence (like the British example with the brain-damaged guy who was brainwashed in... Exeter I think). That would make profiling much more dificult, because it's such an extensive profile. But generally, if you look at religious-terrorists they are Aarab/East-African, male, and living comfortably in the West. It's weird, but I haven't heard of poverty-stricken terrorists before.
In this case, it can work very well - you know the kind of places they have in common (the mosque) and the kind of groups they move in. You know their predominant gender, and their predominant race. It's quite easy, from there, to focus your efforts on about 1.5% (900,000) of the population in the UK, if you only take religion/race/gender into account (note sure the figure in U.S.) and, although there will be times when they're exactly the opposite of the profile, those times will be few and far between.
Profiling becomes harder in places where terrorism is rife, like in Iraq, where they're beginning to use women, Islam is the norm, etc. and that's the time when profiling doesn't work. But it's all about the time and place - IRA are dead easy to profile, religious-terrorists are just as easy (if not easier) but Russian spies would be impossible to profile.