Hopefully by the middle of 2013 we will have:
+ encrypted wallets
+ HD wallets
This would be so great. I recently switched to Multibit for handling my wallet because last month Bitcoin-qt/Armory became too much for my laptop as the blockchain expanded. I still run full bitcoind on the home server to help the network, but the laptop travels a lot and the sync time was getting to be too much.
I love the Multibit interface with the MtGox values, keeping the last sent transaction details in the send tab, and the nice GTK+ theme. I miss my encrypted deterministic wallet though.
Thanks for your comments.
Yes I think the sync times are the main reasons people are looking for alternatives to bitcoin-qt but hopefully with v0.8 it should improve noticably.
Deterministic wallets I am looking forward to getting in too. The 'random key' encrypted wallets will go in first and then I can start on the HD wallets (together with all the other client teams - having them all cross compatible is pretty important).
The MultiBit sync times should also improve when bloom filters go in - currently MultiBit downloads all of the new blocks, but with bloom filters only the relevant transactions will need to be downloaded.