Instead of transaction fees going to pay miners, its actually possible to instead store some of those fees in a fund on the network, which can be payed out to long term Bitcoin holders.

This is what bter.com does for their deposits. There is no reason why you couldnt do this on a blockchain as well.

If only we didnt have to pay miners for their costly task of confirming blocks - if only there was a more efficient way to do it.