...to speed up/cheapen the money-transfer process, we need to get away from using traditional banks entirely.
The solution is not to make the process of converting to and from fiat faster and more decentralized, but rather to "close the commerce loop." It shouldn't be necessary to deal with fiat at all. This is done by growing the Bitcoin economy of goods and services to a sufficient size that someone can stay entirely within Bitcoins or IOUs without the need to deal with fiat.