I've heard many horror stories of people, who sent BTC and paid absurd transaction fees, because they were sending the BTC in the wrong time or their wallet settings weren't adjusted correctly.
Take note that i do not support op's assessment of fiat currencies and banks, people who overpay in transaction fees when using BTC is not a problem with the BTC system, but their own mistake, and since BTC is a decentralized network, its users have to learn to be their own bank. They should know how to check the mempool before making a tx and how to consolidate their inputs to save up on future fees, however, the problem in the op is more about the system in this case, rather than the individual.
Maybe people doesn't check the transaction fees before they send the money so they pay a high fees. But when they accept the high fees and still send their money, that will not be a problem for them because they know the risks behind that. They actually can delay sending their money especially when the fees become high and needs to wait for some time until the fees is decrease.
But what if it's an emergency? Do you cancel the transaction or wait? Meanwhile, with a bank account or altcoin, your transaction happens almost instantly.
Those who still accept to make transactions even when the fees are high are because they have no better options at that time, and I don't think they feel comfortable paying high transaction fees even if they are rich and trading with large amounts because spending a lot of money on transaction fees is not appropriate.
We are bitcoin investors and we may be biased but we also have to be realistic, don't be so stubborn thinking that bitcoin is absolutely perfect while it still has some issues to solve.
Bitcoin transaction fees are unstable and sometimes unusually high, the network is congested and even severely congested. No matter how much we want to hide it, that's exactly what happened to bitcoin and it will most likely happen again in the future.