The weird thing is that I guess there is a way to send the inputs only without paying a fee. Apparently though then there is a chance the transaction won't be processed/picked up byt he miners. I wonder what will happen when the transactions fee gets to be a lot of money (i.e. transaction fee is .0001 but that costs like $50 in US dollars). Seems like it will make it so people won't want to buy anything small with BTC because the transaction fee is so large.
If I understood correctly the transaction fee isn't set in stone, but rather determined by the community.