With this I see no problems with adding a new option to use ls with switches
as demonstrated by this code:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(defun locate-make-command-line-ls (search-string)
  (list shell-file-name
        shell-command-switch
        (format "%s %s %s  | xargs ls -ls" locate-command "-i" search-string) ))
(setq locate-make-command-line 'locate-make-command-line-ls)
#+end_src

Then it's possible to enable 'dired-virtual-mode' in the output buffer
in 'locate-post-command-hook'.

Or maybe locate.el should be obsoleted, and a new option to run 'locate'
should be added to find-dired.el?