I think Circle is going to help in that regard. Realistically the average person is not going to go download BitcoinQT and download a multi gigabyte blockchain. But using a service like Circle makes it much more likely that average people would be able to try bitcoin out without doing anything too difficult.
Nonetheless it isn't that hard for the average joe to look online and work out how to download something like Electrum and spend literally 5 minutes setting it up. While for the absolutely lazy it might help, I suspect the issue with not enough acceptance is simply a merchant issue. If more merchants offered to accept it (or even passed on the fee savings they get) then you might see an increase in the overall adoption.
The Dollar collapsing will cause a lot of suffering, but it will make Bitcoin very popular.
Many of the issues we are concerned with now will disappear as the market finds solutions.