The point about transaction costs is valid to me. If bitcoin is going to be used to buy coffee, for example, then you don't want that your transaction costs are higher than the actual coffee. On top of that, the confirmation time is just too slow currently. If a merchant wants to know he has been paid, he has to wait up to 20 minutes before he knows his money is confirmed (using 1 confirmation).

I'm pretty new to this, but they seem like obvious flaws in current Bitcoin to me. How is this going to be fixed?