the annoying part is that below about 30 minutes there is no paying for speed.

You can pay all you like, if there is a 20 minute delay before the next block worldwide you're all in the same boat, and your transaction fee is wasted.

Yesterday I did a transaction that qualified as 'free' and had to wait over 30 minutes for the first confirm. It sat unconfirmed for 30 minutes. If I had paid a huge fee, it would have taken the same time! Right?

The other annoying part is that fees do not increase speed of confirmations, and confirmations are a vital part of the transaction. With no confirms the money is effectively in limbo. Again, the fee doesn't help here. Right?

So paying a fee is basically just insurance against a greater than half hour first confirm time, which isn't really the kind of fee that it seems to be on the face of things.