RE microtransactions:  this is a FAQ.  It is even in satoshi's original paper and crypto postings.  Bitcoin was never intended to be a useful microtransaction network.  Bitcoin is not optimal for microtransactions, and probably never will be.

RE fees:  the rapid increase in value caught everyone by surprise.  Months ago, we were dealing with "penny flooding" on the network.  Now, 0.01 BTC is a non-trivial amount.

Right now we are releasing new versions of the software as fast as possible, trying to fight the biggest fires ("triage") impacting users on the network.  We know fees need work, and there are already pull requests trying to deal with this:  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/289

Longer term, we want the community to participate in a discussion about how to best balance (a) rapidly changing bitcoin value with (b) protecting the network.

Right now most transactions do not require a fee, but the default client requires a fee in a few situations:

1. Transactions smaller than 0.01 BTC
2. Transactions whose byte size larger than the 27k free transaction area (very rare)

So, to answer the question "why not make it easy to ignore fees?" is really unspending is very difficult.  If it's just a checkbox for users, a lot of users will uncheck it, their transactions will not get relayed or confirmed, and their coins are simply lost in limbo: never confirming, and no way[1] to recover.

Losing coins is a horrible user experience, far worse than having to pay 0.0005 BTC.

But we are open to all suggestions about transaction fees.  You just have to understand the "unspend" problem in its entirety, and the support nightmare that goes along with it.

     Jeff




[1] Technically, this is not really true.  You can "unspend" by restoring a wallet backup or some other esoteric means, but this is not something within the reach of your average user.