I really support Ethereum, there is a lot of good projects i support. But sometimes the network clogs because of popular ICO.
Yes, This recent transaction time problem is too bad but it should be temporary. So I anyway like ether, it is so far my favorite coin in my main portfolio together with couple of other tokens.
You need to spend more money to confirm your transaction hash.
Honestly, $ 1 - 2 for every transaction is normal and very cheap to transfer my money.
I have tried send $10,000 through ETH with gwei 60 and gas limit 250,000 in few hours ago and it only takes me ~0.0015 ETH = ~ $2, confirm within few minutes.