Bitcoin is practical for smaller transactions than are practical with existing payment methods. Small enough to include what you might call the top of the micropayment range. But it doesn't claim to be practical for arbitrarily small micropayments.
Rearranged your bolds for you. Now, what do you consider the top of the micropayment range and what would be a reasonable fee for that? I frequently use Paypal to buy stuff for $1 and I would consider that well into the "payment" range.
It's problematic for stuff of 1$, unless it goes much different for large merchants who have special deals.
The fees are pretty high:
So if I want to buy an mp3 from an artist, and the artist charges me 0.99$ for it, paypal will take ~0.40$ of it. Paypal becomes the artist's 60-40% partner. So this option is clearly not viable. If you go through bitcoin, the artist can keep like 98-95% of the money.
I think that different models might develop to suit different payment methods. The old fashioned but goodie "subscription' comes to mind. ie if you really like the artist and what to support them why not subscribe for say $30 and get xyz for 'free as part of the subscription. I also do not think the ability to make small/micro payments is what bitcoin is really all about. It might work for some types etc but that is a side benefit and not fundemental
Lol.
So, some folks want a strong Bitcoin, that can do what VISA can't do - to be a decentralized, trustless, censorship-resistant digital currency, a store of value with its own sovereign monetary policy - with additional functions such as faster payments & smart contracts being layered-on-top future options.
While some other insensibly covetous folks (as should unfortunately be expected from a community filled with too many short-sighted greedy degenerates.. ;3) would prefer a fast Bitcoin, that strives to copy what VISA has already been doing for decades - attempt to be a competitive, mostly centralized payments processing platform.
..Why do you want BTC to be another credit card? What makes you so confident BTC price suddenly pumps to heaven because a majority voted for bigger, bloatier, spammier blocks and fewer, larger, blackhat-DDoS-cartels-enforced mining node farms that government agencies around the globe find much easier to LibertyReserve down..?
You can focus design towards a strong sovereign-monetary decentralized trustless censorship-resistant digital currency ; Or towards a fast less-decentralized digital currency + non-trustless censorship-vulnerable payments network.
Choose.
Can't prioritize both - as the ol' bearded coder explains, there are 'engineering trade-offs' that need to be made when working with reality.