This just shows that we need to make a thin BTC client or at least make the whole thing more scalable :
-too big to download 1.2 GB over internet for some
-too big to store 1.2 GB and growing on HDD
There is a thin bitcoin client that doesn't download the blockchain.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/ElectrumAlso StrongCoin httpa://www.strongcoin.com (I'm the founder) is a javascript based client which also doesn't require you to download the blockchain.