I'm not too sure about the firstbits thingie, having at least the full address on there might be useful for people not having smartphones to scan QR codes.
I have not realized this is not already case. You are right, having the full address (and key!) is a must (at least in my use case).
QR-codes = machine-readable, latin letters = human-readable. I would never print anything as just a QR code, most humans can read and type letters, but nobody can read QR codes.
And at least here in Europe, not a single person who bought the wallets had a QR code scanner on their phone.
On that note, I still like the 'firstbits' idea since they are just a few letters. You could shout it across the street if necessary. And blockchain.info supports them, so even less typing.