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.
*something* needs to be done, the block chain will be *huge* in the next year or so, correct?
Yes, correct.
Presumably at some point there will be a lightweight client that only downloads block headers, but there will still be hundreds of thousands of those...