I actually agree that "mining" is not the best term to use and that "minting" is even worse.

It scares off libertarians and economists who believe in sound money.

When I'm describing BitCoin to people for the first time, I often refer to them as "transaction processors" or "distributed transaction processors".

Long name, but easier to understand for most people I'm talking to, and far, far less scary.

Just my two cents.