Bitcoin is losing it's dominance as a direct result of the greed of the miners. There is no technical reason for keeping the blocksize so low, it's simply politics and human nature: miners are left to decide in their own short term interest and against the interest of the users. This is exactly how old banking behaved and it's sad to see a great dream killed by greed and pointless bickering.

I have paid in excess of $200 in mining fees in the last month. This is forgone revenue coming directly out of my pocket for a business that does not depend on Bitcoin or crypto. This is on par with fees paid to traditional payment gateways at similar volume. I'm already working at adding the option of a leading altcoin which I won't name and passing the Bitcoin fee to the users. It's just a small business but the tide is slowly but surely turning against bitcoin in the payment arena.

The idea that Bitcoin can act as a "store of value" and only deal with large transactions is delusional. Bitcoin is technically inferior to many of the new altcoins, it's only redeeming feature is the strong network effect it has gained, everybody speaks bitcoin so it makes sense to buy and trade in bitcoins. Once end users switch to newer and better performing altcoins, Bitcoin is dead.

I've entered a BTC withdrawal request two hours ago. Paid the 0.005 fee too "for faster processing". The transaction was not yet broadcasted, according to blockexplorer.com. What gives ? Anyone can confirm ?

I would find it very ironic that people buy BTC at bubble prices when in fact there are no BTCs to be had in MtGox's coffers.