The storing of the entire "ledger" is one of the main problem with bitcoin, and really can only be solved by shifting to a time-based-balances summary.

The reason it takes bitcoin "users" 4 days to get started is the collection, unpack and interpretation of the blockchain.

Having a full chain only at "miners" as part of the "cost" to maintain the network (and profit from it through mining) is fine, but for global adoption, the client needs to become lightweight and portable - so so "balances as at last sync to the network" and "transaction since" is one solution - for those who *want* the whole lot (for whatever reason) should always be able to get it, but most people dont (and I can see "trusted nodes" for mobile apps becoming more prevalent over time)

Another "needed" feature is a solution to the "empty pocket" problem - having multiple addresses for receipt of bitcoins and then consolidating them and *abandoning* those addresses. In the "real" world you dont pay fees to take money from your multiple moneyboxes and spend them in one go - from a ledger (and therefore bitcoin) point of view they're logically transferred to one "Box" and then spent from there

Is the current change a good idea - IMHO as a temporary measure while proper solutions to the issues of bitcoin growing are found, then yes.

Is the amount being suggested (5430 satoshis) right - probably not - as it will discourage small miners from pools where they're not submitting lots of shares, so get small "payouts" - which ultimately hurts the network not helps it.