Another new user on IRC, Linux this time, was downloading at a rate of 1 block every 4 seconds -- estimated total download time around 4 days.

Other commenters in this thread are correct that upgrading users don't need a block database...  but something needs to be done to improve the initial block download experience for new users.  Improve the database all you want.. you'll still have peers giving you blocks slowly for any number of reasons.

We have the hashes for genesis block through block 74000 hardcoded (compiled) into bitcoin, so there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to automatically download a compressed zipfile of the block database from anywhere, unpack it, verify it, and start running.