On the other hand, as a developer I can understand the other side of the "coin" as well. People become annoyed if the 1000th person creates an account on this forums and thinks he has a completely original idea by proposing wallet encryption, even though the developers are working hard on implementing it. Or makes yet another topic why bitcoin won't succeed. Or thinks its a CIA plot. And so on. If people haven't done their own research, a simple google query would do, then they can expect the replies to be a bit snarky.
I don't think most people consider it an original idea - they think it would make sense. And I've done the forum research, and have found posts about encrypting wallet.dat from last year! And posts arguing "encryption does not make it 100% safe either so why bother" from last year, too.
I'm aware that no encryption scheme would make wallet.dat entirely safe, but it would stop many drive-by-attacks. Like having a lock on your bicycle will prevent the drunk from taking it to go home and then sinking it in a lake.