Besides, 10 minutes is too long to verify that payment is good. It needs to be as fast as swiping a credit card is today.
See the snack machine thread, I outline how a payment processor could verify payments well enough, actually really well (much lower fraud rate than credit cards), in something like 10 seconds or less. If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=423.msg3819#msg3819^ Thank you! That is a great post by
satoshi that is saying about the exact same thing! I should go read all his posts. There is some wisdom there!
Other people argue differently in that same thread. Spitting out 2 spends from the same time is easily done. It can work enough to be a valid attack. That is why everyone insists on at least a confirmation for transactions of any significance.
The problem is that for people are fascinated by the pure technical aspect of being able to spend digital money, this wait time causes a severe problem. The answer of the koolaid drinkers is not better technology, it is layering on kludges to fix the problem.