I don't think it's serious impediment. People use stuff without being involved at every level all the time. Mining is only one part of the picture and realistically it's only dominating that picture in the early stages of the bitcoin lifecycle. It's currently low fruit. As it becomes stupidly difficult to find new coins, mining will become less visible and the focus will switch to other areas of bitcoin. Miners will eventually have to survive on transaction fees alone, we'll have to get used to paying those or our transactions won't be processed!