satoshi said himself that bitcoins are not designed for micropayments. that role should be left to third party clearing houses.
Interesting... Do you remember where he had said that?
I can't seem to remember ever reading such assertion.
Here's the closest I could find with a quick search:
- snip -
...A transaction over the size limit can still be sent if a small fee is added...
In the event of a flood, you would still be able to jump the queue and get your transactions into the next block by paying a 0.01 transaction fee.
It doesn't mean that bitcoin is "not designed for micro-payments"... He merely clarified what would happen to certain transactions if txn fee is not included. Remember, the goal is to eventually have fees assigned to pretty much every transaction in the block chain.