I really dont understand why people defend NOT encrypting the wallet.
Maybe I'm missing something.
Gavin Writes in the blog:
"First, losing your wallet or forgetting your password is (arguably) as big a threat as theft."
Even if we ran with this and said, 50/50 you lose your password or get your unencrypted wallet stolen, people would still choose to lose their password. At least some douch bag isnt out there spending them.
IMO, that's just inviting disaster. The client should only be running on machines that are inherently secure. Doing this will encourage people to run the client on insecure machines, which will compromise their wallets even if they are encrypted. Strong passwords will be forgotten, leading to lost BitCoins. Weak passwords will be brute forced, accomplishing nothing.
It seems to me nobody ever expects 'average' people to use bitcoins (whereby I define average as someone running windows, and is not really sure if blu-ray is the same as bluetooth).
In that case, I think just take down the windows binaries, and make users compile it themselves. if they can do that, they're ready for bitcoin.
BTW I really hate this elitest attitude.