what about allowing an owner to lock BTC to an address for a period of time?

[benjamindees]

Newly mined coins aren't valid until 100 blocks have passed
...
Also, you end up with a race if the reorg goes back to before the script would have become valid, which might only be two or three blocks, which happen on a regular basis already when there is no practical way to profit from them.

So, theoretically, couldn't the same limit be placed on spending the output of a time locked transaction, to prevent this?

[MysteryMiner]

Censorship is like Michael Jackson's anal bleaching - at some point it got out of control.

lol, I like that one is that your creation?

Partially. I added the censorship thing to this, the MJ bleaching was probably from efukt.com long time ago.

If your bitcoins are stolen this is your and only your fault!

Of course, the thief is totally innocent. 

This is how computers work. Some people are smarter and makes computers to do unexpected things for amusement or abusement. Get over it or return to using mechanical Iron Felix.

To original topic - the time locked transactions are possible right now - the coins are locked from spending for approx 10 minutes until they are in a block. I dont see any need for Bitcoin to to all sorts of things for any life situation. Bitcoins are purely for transactions, use web based services such as mybitcoin.com or mtgox for any additional "features" such as freezing your own coins from withdrawal and so on.

[kjj]

Newly mined coins aren't valid until 100 blocks have passed
...
Also, you end up with a race if the reorg goes back to before the script would have become valid, which might only be two or three blocks, which happen on a regular basis already when there is no practical way to profit from them.

So, theoretically, couldn't the same limit be placed on spending the output of a time locked transaction, to prevent this?

Right now, you can validate a block with no prior knowledge of any of the transactions in it.  If you are thinking what I think you are thinking, it would require that every node have perfect knowledge of all transactions on the network before it could be sure a block was valid.  Or maybe you are thinking something else, I'm not sure.

[MysteryMiner]

You are thinking how to make hammer work also as a saw.

[benjamindees]

You are thinking how to make hammer work also as a saw.

It's a useful skill.