We shouldn't have to pay fees to send Bitcoins, part of the whole idea of Bitcoin is avoiding fees like those placed on FIAT bank accounts. Either way, something is building in Bitcoin as a whole, and things are going to get very interesting very fast in the near future... 
I think no fees WAS the dream, but the spam attacks put stop to that.
I quite happy paying a fee personally, within reason.
One day bitcoin will rely entirely on tx fees, but not yet!
There are a number of things that Bitcoin users can do to help in the short term. Try to keep transaction sizes low for example. Faucets, sig sponsors and gambling sites could increase their minimum payment levels to try to reduce long chain transactions. I'm sure you can think of many other things. All of these are in our interests, as they will help to keep fees lower.
Bit of a pain though.
Attackers wont see it like that?