Using Bloom filtering may not be entirely viable yet, I'll have to check. The big changes is first downloading and validating headers, and then downloading and validating the blocks itself. IMHO, it's the only way to have a sync mechanism that is both fast, stable and understandable (I have no doubt that there are other emchanisms that share two of those three properties...).
I still think a simple solution, like "give me this part of this block/transaction", would have a much better chance of success in a short term.And I also think that it would be nice to have something in a short term
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What protocol is used to actually fetch blocks is pretty much orthogonal to the logic of deciding what to fetch, and how to validate it, IMHO.
I disagree. If you are a node behind DSL, and you have a very limited upload bandwidth, you do not want to serve blocks (and maybe even transactions), unless it is really necessary.There are servers out there, connected to the fastest networks in the world - these you should use, as much as you can. Who is going to stop you?