As for namecoin network - seems like people do not see any value in namecoins, thats why they switched to bitcoins now - it gives more profit.
Namecoin is not ready for wide distribution, the whole thing about distributed DNS should be implemented first - then (maybe) people will return.
I agree, the software needs to be easier to use, and support for domain lookup in programs needs to be implemented. I'm working on Firefox support for Namecoin lookup at the moment.