All of you are still talking about anonymity, while in the same moment most people don't give a shit about it. They just want a simple way to transfer and receive bitcoin.
NO. We are talking about privacy, not anonymity. They are different. Address reuse should be discouraged from day one. If someone does nto want to take the 15 minutes it takes to learn how to properly use Bitcoin then they should not use it.
Perhaps, but what do you do when a competing crypto-coin comes along and solves this user interface issue and makes address reuse happen behind the scenes? For example Monero gives you just one address and that is all, yet the address is anonymous and the money is actually stored in behind the scenes one time addresses. The good thing is we have a GUI on the way and then you can redirect these users that should not use Bitcoin to Monero, because then they don't have to keep making lots of addresses, one address forever, how simple is that?
It's so simple that it doesn't work, few days ago there was a user who was crying he lost his "temporary transaction key" (read Monero docs to find out what it is) and he can not prove the payment is made to the second party. They don't claim he had not payed, just both sides can't find the transaction if their life depends on it, no matter they know both sending and receiving addresses. Please don't tell me that system is superior.
It works, and it's very easy to tell if someone has paid without the payment ID, you just check to see if the incoming amount is the same.
Anyway, the official GUI isn't out yet, it soon will be. Once the project has a GUI it'll be really hard to screw up, and again, all you need is a payment ID.
This is exactly like how a bank transfer works now, you send to your money to the other person and put in a customer reference number.
Monero replicates an average user's experience with internet banking far better than Bitcoin. Everyone knows what a customer reference number is, that is exactly how Monero works too.