Will there be a sidechain for micropayments? For example? Are there any proposals?
Damned if I know.
Seriously, yes I'm sure there will. It is one of the areas of highest interest. Part of this is because it was one of the early sales pitches of Bitcoin and more than a few 'tards bought it because few people seem to have a real grasp of numbers very much larger than the number of fingers on their hand.
The other thing which Bitcoin is really lacking is real-time behavior such that you could actually drink your coffee before it got cold waiting for your transaction to go through. The problem is currently solved by giving someone else a bunch of Bitcoin that they will hold for you and they will pay off the vendor (in a manner not at all unlike the modern fiat banking system.) That will also likely be addressed by some of the earlier sidechains, but in a more healthy way without counter-party risk. This, of course, preserved Bitcoin as 'Sound Money' which is one of the many reasons I'm very excited about sidechains.
I'd suspect that both micropayments and real-time payments will be implemented in the outer layers by a token system backed by pegged Bitcoin.